Commentary

We are now on verse 39 of Surah al-Anfal. Two words: فِتْنَةٌ (Fitnah) and دينُ (Deen) used here need our attention since both are used in many shades of meaning lexically.

At this place, two meanings have been reported from authorities of Tafsir from among the Sahabah and Tabi` in: (1) That Fitnah is taken to mean Kufr and Shirk, and Din is taken to mean the Deen of Islam. This very Tafsir has been reported from Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Abbas ؓ . Given this exegetic view, the verse would mean that Muslims must continue fighting disbelievers until disbelief disintegrates yielding its place to Islam and there remains no religion and faith other than Islam. Given this situation, this injunction will be specific to only the people of Makkah and the people of Arabia - because, the Arabian Peninsula is the home of Islam. The presence of any other religion, other than Islam in it, shall be dangerous for Islam. As for the rest of the world, other religions and faiths could be kept existing as con-firmed by other verses of the Holy Qur'an and reports from Hadith.

(2) According to the second Tafsir reported from Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Umar ؓ and others, Fitnah at this place means the chain of pain, retributive suffering and endless woes which the disbelievers of Makkah had always been inflicting on Muslims. As long as they were in Makkah, they kept' braving all sorts of pain caused to them all the time. They could do nothing about it being virtually held by them in their clutches. When these people migrated towards Madinah, they pursued each single Muslim and kept killing or looting them. Even after these people had reached Madinah, the wrath and anger of the disbelievers kept showing up in the form of attacks on the whole city of Madinah.

Set against Fitnah, the term دین Deen means the state of exercising functional reach and control and prevailing over antagonists. Seen from this angle, the Tafsir of the verse would be that Muslims must keep fighting disbelievers until fellow Muslims are delivered and secured from the tyrannies of disbelievers - and until Islam takes over so that it can defend and protect Muslims from the injustices inflicted on them by others. An event relating to Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn 'Umar ؓ also goes on to support this very Tafsir. The report of the event says: When Hajjaj ibn Yusuf launched an armed attack against Sayyid-na ` Abdullah ibn Zubayr ؓ the Amir of Makkah, it became a strange scene. There were Muslims on both sides and their swords were swishing against each other. Seeing this, a couple of people came to Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Umar ؓ and said to him: Here you are watching the horror Muslims are in, although you are the son of Sayyidna ` Umar ibn al-Khattab ؓ who was not one of those who would ever tolerate such evil generating disorder. Why is it that you would not come out to remove this Fitnah? Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Umar ؓ said: The reason is that Allah Ta` ala has decreed that shedding the blood of any Muslim is forbidden. Both of them countered him by saying: Do you not recite the verse of the Qur'an: قَاتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّىٰ لَا تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ (Fight them until there is no Fitnah [ disorder or disbelief ] anymore - 39)? Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Umar ؓ said: Of course, I do recite this verse - and act in accordance with it as well. We continued fighting disbelievers as commanded in this verse until came the time when there remained no Fitnah anymore, and Islam became the dominant دین Deen. Now, here are people like you who wish to kill each other and plant the Fitnah all over again, as a result of which, everything other than Allah will come to reign supreme, and that which thus reigns supreme shall be counter to the true faith, our دین Deen. What he meant to say was that the command to wage Jihad, fight and kill, was against the Fitnah of disbelief and the tyranny of the disbelievers - that they had done, and continued doing so until that Fitnah was elim-inated. Now to apply this state of affairs as an analogy to fit forms of infighting among Muslims themselves was not sound logic. In fact, at a time when Muslims fight and kill each other, the instructions of the Holy Prophet ﷺ are: 'In such a situation one who keeps sitting is better than one who stands up.'

Summarizing this Tafsir, it can be said that Jihad, fighting and killing against the enemies of Islam was Wajib (necessary) on Muslims until the Fitnah of their tyranny unleashed on Muslims is eliminated, and Islam's ascendancy stands established over all other orders - and this outcome will come to pass only close to Qiyamah, therefore, the injunction of Jihad is valid and operative right through the Last Day of Qiyamah.

Two things could result from Jihad against the enemies of Islam: (1) That they stop being oppressive to Muslims, either by entering the Islamic brotherhood and becoming brothers-in-faith, or by remaining attached to their religion, they stop harassing and hurting Muslims and enter into a treaty of allegiance.

(2) That they reject both options and stick to their policy of confrontation. Injunctions covering both options have been mentioned in the next verse (40). It was said:

فَإِنِ انتَهَوْا فَإِنَّ اللَّـهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ‌

So, if they desist, then, Allah is indeed watchful over what they do.

It means that Allah Ta` ala would deal with them in the light of their conduct. Put simply, if they desisted, Jihad action against them will be suspended. Under this arrangement, Muslims may have apprehended danger from the disbelievers. Their readiness to sign a peace pact or their declaration to have become Muslims soon after the en-counter of mutual killing may have possibly appeared to Muslims as nothing but some strategy of deception usually employed in wars. In a situation like that, stopping the ongoing war could have been harmful for Muslims. The answer to this apprehension was given by saying that Muslims are bound by deeds they see outwardly. The one who looks into hearts and knows their hidden secrets is none but Allah Ta` ala Himself. Therefore, when disbelievers declare their adherence to Islam or make a peace pact, Muslims have no choice but that they stop fighting and killing in Jihad. As for personal doubts about whether or not they have accepted Islam, or peace, honestly from their heart or all this is a cover for deception - these are things which fall in the domain of Allah. He knows it well that should they do something like that, they will be taken care of in some other way. Muslims should not lay the foundation of their matters and dealings on such thoughts and apprehensions.

If hands were raised against them after their declaration of Islam or pact of peace, those waging Jihad would turn into criminals - as it appears in a Hadith of the Sahib of al-Bukhari and Muslim. There, the Holy Prophet ﷺ has said that he has been commanded to fight the enemies of Islam until they accept the Kalimah: لا إلہ إلا اللہ محمد الرسول اللہ (There is no god worthy of worship but Allah, Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah), establish Salah and pay Zakah. When they have done that, their life and property shall all become protected1. The only exception shall be that of a punishment given to them against a crime under the Islamic Law. What remains of the accountability of their hearts - whether they are accepting the creeds and deeds of Islam heartily or that they are doing it hypocritically - shall be resting with Allah.

1. It should be recalled that this principle is restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, where no disbeliever is allowed to live as a permanent citizen. In other parts of the world, the disbelievers may opt for jizyah and may continue to profess their own religion, the punishment of their disbelief being deferred to the Hereafter. (Muhammad Taqi Usmani).

According to another Hadith which Abu Dawud has reported from several noble Companions, the Holy Prophet ﷺ said: Whoever does any injustice to a peace pact beneficiary (a person who has entered into a pact of allegiance with the Islamic government) or brings him any harm, or makes him do something which is more than what he can physically do, or takes something from him without his genuine, heart-felt consent, then, on the Day of Judgment, I shall support that peace pact beneficiary against a Muslim who has done something like that.

The present verse of the Holy Qur'an under study along with re-ports from Hadith have obviously exposed Muslims to a political danger. Think of an arch enemy who happens to be at their mercy. Just to save his life, the enemy recites the Kalimah of Islam. Right there, Muslims have been obligated to hold their hands instantly. One may think: With this style of combat, Muslims would be unable to overcome just about any enemy! But, Allah Ta` ala has His own ways of doing things. Here, He has taken the hidden secrets of their hearts as His area of responsibility. In a miraculous manner, it has been demonstrated practically that Muslims never faced such an embarrassing situation in any of their battlefields. However, there have been hundreds of hypocrites in a state of peace who cheated, passed on as Muslims, even went about fulfilling the obligations of Salah and Sawm at least outwardly. Some of the miserably graceless among them had no other objective in sight but that they would exact a few benefits from Muslims and remain safe from their revenge despite nursing hostility in their hearts. Then, there were some of those too who were doing so with political motives of spying on Muslims, find their secrets and maintain conspiratorial liaison with enemies. But, such was the Di-vine law that it instructed Muslims to treat all of them as they would treat Muslims - unless it was proved that they had themselves betrayed their hostility to Islam or contravened the peace agreement.

This teaching of Islam applied to the condition in which the enemies of Islam promise to desist from their hostility and enter into agreement to that effect.