Ат-Тавба 9:61–119

And of them, the hypocrites, are those who injure the Prophet, by casting aspersions on him and communicating [to others] what he says [in confidence], saying, when they are forbidden from [doing] this, lest it should reach him: ‘He is only a listener!’, that is, he listens to anything that is said, and accepts it, so that when we swear to him that we have not communicated [to others] a particular thing, he believes us. Say, he is, ‘A listener, who listens, to good for you, and not one who listens to evil, one who believes in God and has faith, he trusts, in the believers, in what they inform him, and not in others (the lām [of li’l-mu’minīna, ‘in the believers’] has been added to distinguish between belief in the sense of ‘submitting [to God]’ (islām), and in other senses [such as ‘trusting’]) and who is a mercy (read rahmatun, in the nominative, as a supplement to udhunun, ‘a listener’, or rahmatin, in the genitive, as a supplement to khayrin, ‘to good’) to those of you who believe. Those who injure God’s Messenger, for them there is a painful chastisement’.

They swear by God to you, O believers, that what has reached you of the Messenger being injured they did not do, so that they might please you, but God and His Messenger are more deserving that they should please them, through obedience, if they are, true, believers (the merging of the pronouns into one [in yurdūhu, ‘their pleasing them’] is because the ‘pleasure’ of both [God and His Messenger] are mutually dependent; [either that] or it is because the predicate of Allāhu wa-rasūluhu, ‘God and His Messenger’, has been omitted).

Do they not know that, the fact is that, whoever opposes God and His Messenger, for him shall be the fire of Hell, as a requital, to abide therein? That is the great abasement.

The hypocrites are cautious, they fear, lest a sūra should be revealed to them, that is, [to] the believers, informing them of what is in their [the hypocrites’] hearts, of hypocrisy, and yet despite this they persist in mockery. Say: ‘Keep mocking! (this is an imperative of threat) God will bring out, He will make manifest, that, hypocrisy of yours, of which you are fearful’, lest it be brought out.

And if (la-in: the lām is for oaths) you question them, about their mockery of you and of the Qur’ān while they were journeying with you towards Tabūk, assuredly they will say, making excuses: ‘We were only engaging [in idle talk] and jesting’, in conversation, in order to pass [the time of] the road, and we did not mean it. Say, to them: ‘Were you then mocking God, and His signs, and His Messenger?

Make no excuses, for that. You have disbelieved after believing, that is, your disbelief has become manifest even as you have manifested belief. If We forgive (read passive yu‘fa, ‘it is forgiven’, or active [first person plural] na‘fu, ‘We forgive’) a party of you, because of its sincerity and its repentance, as in the case of Jahsh b. Humayyir, We will chastise (read either [passive] tu‘adhdhab, ‘[it] shall be chastised’, or nu‘adhdhib) another party because they were sinners’, persisting in hypocrisy and mockery.

The hypocrites, both men and women, are of one another, that is, they resemble one another in religion, as pieces of an individual entity, they enjoin indecency, unbelief and acts of disobedience, and forbid decency, faith and obedience; and they withhold their hands shut, from expending in obedience [of God]; they have forgotten God, they have abandoned obedience of Him, so He has forgotten them, He has deprived them of His grace. Truly the hypocrites, they are the wicked.

God has promised the hypocrites, both men and women, and the disbelievers, the fire of Hell, to abide therein: it will suffice them, as a requital and a punishment. And God has cursed them, He has removed them from His mercy, and theirs will be a lasting, perpetual, chastisement.

You, O hypocrites, are, like those before you, who were far mightier than you, and more abundant in wealth and children. They enjoyed their share, their lot in this world. So you enjoy, O hypocrites, your share, just as those before you enjoyed their share, and you indulge [in vain talk], in falsehood and defamation of the Prophet (s), just as they indulged [in vain talk]. Those, their works have become invalid in this world and in the Hereafter; and those, they indeed are the losers.

Has not the tidings, the tale, of those before them reached them — the folk of Noah, and ‘Ād, the folk of Hūd, and Thamūd, the folk of Sālih, and the folk of Abraham, and the dwellers of Midian, the folk of Shu‘ayb, and the Deviant [cities]?, the cities of the folk of Lot, meaning, its inhabitants. Their messengers brought them clear proofs, with miracles, but they denied them, and so were destroyed. God would never have wronged them, by punishing them for no sin [on their part], but they wronged themselves, by committing sin.

And the believers, both men and women, are allies of one another; they enjoin decency and forbid indecency; they observe prayer and pay the alms, and they obey God and His Messenger. Those, God will have mercy on them. Truly God is Mighty, nothing can prevent Him from fulfilling His promise and His threat; Wise, He puts everything in its proper place.

God has promised the believers, both men and women, Gardens underneath which rivers flow, to abide therein, and blessed dwellings in the Gardens of Eden, for residence, and beatitude from God is greater, is superior to all of that. That is the supreme triumph.

O Prophet, struggle against the disbelievers, with the sword, and the hypocrites, with words and [definitive] arguments, and be harsh with them, through rebuke and aversion [towards them]; for their abode will be Hell, an evil journey’s end, [an evil] resort it is!

They, the hypocrites, swear by God that they said nothing, of the defamation that has reached you [as being] from them; but they did indeed say the word of disbelief and did disbelieve after their submission [to God]: they did indeed manifest disbelief after having manifested submission [to God]. And they purposed that which they never attained, in the way of assassinating the Prophet on the night of al-‘Aqaba, upon his return from Tabūk — there were about ten to twenty of them, and ‘Ammār b. Yāsir struck the faces of their riding camels when they came against him and were thus repulsed; and they were only spiteful, they detested, that God and His Messenger should have enriched them of His bounty, by way of spoils, when they had been in dire need: the meaning is that this was all that they attained from him, which is nothing to be spiteful about. So if they repent, of hypocrisy and believe in you, it will be better for them; but if they turn away, from belief, God will chastise them with a painful chastisement in this world, by having them killed, and in the Hereafter, in the Fire, and they have none on earth as protector, to guard them from Him, or helper, to defend them.

And some of them have made a covenant with God [saying]: ‘If He gives us of His bounty, we will give voluntary alms (la-nassaddaqanna: the original tā’ [of natasaddaqanna] has been assimilated with the sād) and become of the righteous’: this was Tha‘laba b. Hātib, who asked the Prophet (s) to supplicate on his behalf so that God would give him wealth, of which he would give every needy person his due. He [the Prophet] thus supplicated for him and he became wealthy, but stopped attending the Friday prayer and congregational prayers and refused to pay the alms-tax, as God, exalted be He, says:

Yet when He gave them of His bounty, they became niggardly with it and turned away, from obedience to God, in aversion.

So He made the consequence in their case hypocrisy, fixed, in their hearts, until the day they meet Him, that is, God, on the Day of Resurrection, because they failed God in what they promised Him and because, of that concerning which, they lied: he [Tha‘laba] then brought [the payment of] his alms to the Prophet (s), who said to him, ‘God has forbidden me to accept [it] from you’; so he [Tha‘laba] began to throw earth on his head [in remorse]. He then approached Abū Bakr with it, who did not accept it. He then went to ‘Umar [b. al-Khattāb], who also did not accept it. He went to ‘Uthmān [b. ‘Affān], but he did not accept it; he died during the latter’s reign.

Did they, the hypocrites, not know that God knows their secret, what they conceal within themselves, and their confidential talks, what they confide in each other, and that God is the Knower of the hidden things?, what is concealed from the eyes.

When the verse concerning ‘voluntary alms’ [Q. 9:75] was revealed, a man came and gave a large amount as voluntary alms, so the hypocrites said, ‘He is [merely] showing off!’ Another man then came and gave a [moderate] measure [of food], and so they said, ‘God has no need of this man’s charity!’ The following was then revealed: Those who (alladhīna is the subject) find fault with, defame, the believers who offer alms voluntarily, performing supererogation, and such as find nothing [to offer] but their endeavours, [nothing but] what they are capable of, and offer it; and deride them (and the predicate [of the mentioned subject] is [the following]) — God [Himself] derides them, He has requited them for their derision, and theirs will be a painful chastisement.

Ask forgiveness for them, O Muhammad (s), or do not ask forgiveness for them: this leaves the choice of asking forgiveness, or refraining, up to him; the Prophet (s) said, ‘I have been given the choice, and I made it’, meaning [the choice] to ask forgiveness, as reported by al-Bukhārī. If you ask forgiveness for them seventy times, God will not forgive them: it is said that the ‘seventy’ is intended to express [by hyperbole] a great frequency of asking forgiveness. In [the Sahīh of] al-Bukhārī there is a hadīth [which states]: ‘If I was sure that were I to ask more than seventy times, God would forgive [them], I would have done so’. It is also said, however, that the very number [seventy] is actually meant, on account of this other hadīth of his: ‘I shall ask more than seventy times’, whereupon it was made clear to him [the Prophet] that the matter regarding forgiveness had been concluded by the verse, [Q. 63:6] Alike it will be regarding them: whether you ask forgiveness for them or you do not ask forgiveness for them [God will not forgive them]; that is because they disbelieved in God and His Messenger; and God does not guide the wicked folk.

Those who were left behind, from [the journey to] Tabūk, rejoiced at remaining behind the Messenger of God, and were averse to striving with their wealth and their lives in the way of God. And they said, that is, they said to one another, ‘Do not go forth, do not set off to [join] the fight, in the heat!’ Say: ‘The fire of Hell is hotter, than Tabūk, and more worthy for them to guard against, by not staying behind, did they but understand’, this, they would not have stayed behind.

But let them laugh a little, in this world, and weep much, in the Hereafter, as a requital for what they used to earn (the sentence is predicative of their state, expressed in the form of an imperative).

So if God brings you back, from Tabūk, to a party of them, of those hypocrites who stayed behind in Medina, and they ask leave of you to go forth, with you on some other campaign, say, to them: ‘You shall never more go forth with me, and you shall never fight with me against an enemy. You were content to stay behind the first time, so stay behind with those who stay behind’, away from [military] campaigns, such as women and children and others.

When the Prophet (s) prayed over [the dead body of ‘Abd Allāh] Ibn Ubayy, the following was revealed: And never pray over any one of them when he is dead, nor stand over his grave, at a burial or as a visit; lo! they disbelieved in God and His Messenger, and died while they were wicked, [they died] disbelieving.

And let not their wealth and their children please you; God desires only to chastise them thereby in this world, and that their souls should depart while they are disbelievers.

And when a sūra, that is, a section of the Qur’ān, is revealed, saying: ‘Believe in God and strive with His Messenger’, the affluent among them ask leave of you, saying, ‘Leave us to be with those who sit at home’.

They are content to be with those who stay behind (khawālif is the plural of khālifa, meaning the women who ‘stay behind’ [takhallafna] at home) and a seal has been set upon their hearts, so they do not understand, [what is] good.

But the Messenger and those who believe with him strive with their wealth and their lives: for them are the good things, in this life and in the Hereafter; those, they are the successful, the triumphant.

God has prepared for them Gardens underneath which rivers flow, to abide therein: that is the supreme triumph.

And those Bedouins who had an excuse (al-mu‘adhdhirūn: the original tā’ has been assimilated with the dāl, in other words [it would usually be read as] al-mu‘tadhirūn, which [itself] is a variant reading), those [of them who were] excused, [came] to the Prophet (s), asking for leave, to stay behind on account of their excuses, and so he gave them leave to do so. And those who lied to God and His Messenger, by feigning belief, [those] hypocrites among the Bedouin, stayed behind, [refraining] from coming to give [their] excuses — a painful chastisement shall befall those of them who disbelieve.

As for the weak, such as the old, and the sick, the blind and the chronically ill, and those who find nothing to expend, for the struggle, no blame, no sin, falls upon them, should they stay away from it, if they remain true to God and to His Messenger, when they stay behind, by not spreading false rumours or impeding [others from joining the struggle], but by [adhering to] obedience. There is no way [of blame], no way of reproach, against those who are virtuous, through such [behaviour]. And God is Forgiving, Merciful, to them, by granting them such leeway [in this matter].

Nor against those who, when they came to you so that you might give them a mount, [to ride] with you on the raid — these were seven men of the Ansār; but it is also said that they were the Banū Muqrin — you having said to them, ‘I cannot find [a mount] whereon to mount you’ (this [last sentence] is a circumstantial qualifier), turned back (this is the response to the [clause beginning with] idhā, ‘when’), that is, they departed, their eyes flowing, pouring, with tears (min al-dam‘i: min is explicative) for sorrow that they could not find the means to expend, for the [campaign] struggle.

The way [of blame] is only against those who ask leave of you, to stay behind, when they are rich. They are content to be with those who stay behind and God has set a seal on their hearts, so that they do not know: a similar statement has already been made.

They will make excuses to you, for having stayed behind, when you return to them, from the campaign. Say, to them: ‘Do not make excuses; we will never believe you! God has already told us tidings of you, that is, He has already informed us of your [true] status. And God will see your work, and [so will] His Messenger, then you will be returned, through resurrection, to the Knower of the unseen and the visible, meaning [to] God, and He will tell you what you used to do’, and requite you for it.

They will swear to you by God, when you turn back, [when] you return, to them, from Tabūk, that they had [genuine] excuses for staying behind, so that you may leave them be, refraining from reproaching them. So leave them be, for they are an abomination, filth, on account of their inner vileness, and their abode shall be Hell, as requital for what they used to earn.

They will swear to you, that you may be satisfied with them; but if you are satisfied with them, God will surely not be satisfied with the wicked folk, that is, with them: your satisfaction is of no avail in the face of the wrath of God.

The Bedouins, the [Arab] nomads, are more intense in unbelief and hypocrisy, than the city-dwellers, on account of their harshness and crude nature and their being too remote to hear the Qur’ān, and are more likely not to know the bounds of what God has revealed to His Messenger, in the way of rulings and [legal] prescriptions; and God is Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in what He does with them.

And of the Bedouins there is he who takes what he expends, in the way of God, as a penalty, as a liability and a [financial] loss, because he does not aspire to be rewarded for it, but expends it out of fear: these were Banū Asad and [Banū] Ghatafān; and awaits for you [evil] turns of fortune, the fortunes of time, for you, that these should turn against you, and so be rid [of you]. Theirs shall be the evil (read as al-sū‘, or al-saw‘) turn of fortune, that is, chastisement and destruction shall turn on them, not on you. And God is Hearer, of the sayings of His servants, Knower, of their actions.

And of the Bedouins there is he who believes in God and the Last Day, such as [men from among the tribes of] Juhayna and Muzayna, and takes what he expends, in the way of God, as [pious] offerings to bring [him] nearer to God, and, as a means, to [secure] the prayers, the supplications, of the Messenger, for him. Surely these, the expenditure of such [men], will bring them nearer (read qurubatun or qurbatun), to Him. God will admit them into His mercy, His Paradise. Truly God is Forgiving, to those who obey Him, Merciful, to them.

And the first to lead the way, of the Emigrants and the Helpers, namely, those who were present at [the battle of] Badr, or [it means] all the Companions, and those who follow them, up to the Day of Resurrection, by being virtuous, in deeds, God will be pleased with them, for their obedience of Him, and they will be pleased with Him, for His reward [to them]; and He has prepared for them Gardens — with rivers flowing beneath them (a variant reading adds min [min tahtihā, ‘beneath which’]) — to abide therein forever: that is the supreme triumph.

And among those around you, O inhabitants of Medina, of the Bedouins there are hypocrites, such as [the tribes of] Aslam, Ashja‘ and Ghifār, and among the townspeople of Medina, there are also hypocrites, who are obstinate in hypocrisy, engrossed in it and persisting [in it]. You do not know them — an address to the Prophet (s) — but We know them, and We shall chastise them twice, by disgracing them or having them killed in this world, and by way of punishment in the grave, then they will be returned, in the Hereafter, to a terrible chastisement, namely, the Fire.

And [there are] others (ākharūn is the subject), [another] folk, who have confessed their sins, for having stayed behind (i‘tarafū bi-dhunūbihim is an adjectival qualification of it [the subject] and the predicate is [the following, khalatū ‘amalan sālihan]) they have mixed a righteous deed, that is, their former [participation in the] struggle, or the their confession of their sins, or otherwise, with another that was bad, which is their having stayed behind. It may be that God will relent to them. Truly God is Forgiving, Merciful: this was revealed regarding Abū Lubāba and a group of men who tied themselves to the walls of the mosque after they heard what had been revealed regarding those who stayed behind; they swore that only the Prophet (s) would untie them, which he did when this [verse] was revealed.

Take of their wealth some alms, to purify them and to cleanse them thereby, of their sins; he thus took a third of their wealth and gave it away as charity; and pray for them, that is, supplicate for them; truly your prayers are a comfort, a mercy, for them: it is also said [to mean] reassurance [for them], that their repentance has been accepted. And God is Hearer, Knower.

Do they not know that God is He Who accepts repentance from His servants and takes, accepts, the voluntary alms, and that God is He Who is the Relenting, to His servants, by accepting their repentance, and the Merciful?, to them (the interrogative is intended as an affirmative [statement] and is meant to incite them to [offer] repentance and charity).

And say, to them, or to people [in general]: ‘Act, as you will, for God will surely see your actions, and [so will] His Messenger and the believers, and you will be returned, through resurrection, to the Knower of the unseen and the visible, that is, [to] God, and He will tell you what you used to do’, and so requite you for it.

And [there are] others, from among those who stayed behind, who are deferred (read murja’ūna or murjawna), whose repentance is delayed, to God’s command, concerning them, according to His will, whether He chastises them, by causing them to die without [their having made any] repentance, or relents to them; and God is Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in what He does with them. These [others mentioned] are the three, who will be mentioned afterwards: Murāra b. al-Rabī‘, Ka‘b b. Mālik and Hilāl b. Umayya. They stayed behind out of laziness and their inclination for peace and quiet, not out of hypocrisy. Unlike the others, however, they did not excuse themselves before the Prophet (s), and so the matter regarding them was suspended for fifty days, during which time people avoided them, until it was later revealed that God had relented to them.

And, among them, those who have chosen a mosque — these were twelve men from among the hypocrites — by way of harm, to cause distress for those of the mosque of Qubā’, and disbelief, since they built it on the orders of the monk Abū ‘Āmir, as a sanctuary for him, so that whoever comes from his side may stay there: he had gone to the Byzantine Emperor (qaysar) to bring troops to fight against the Prophet (s), and to cause division among the believers, who pray in the mosque of Qubā’, by having some of these pray in their [the hypocrites’] mosque, and as an outpost, an observation post, for those who waged war against God and His Messenger before, that is, before it was built — meaning the above-mentioned Abū ‘Āmir — they will swear: ‘We desired nothing, by building it, but, to do, good’, by way of kindness towards the poor in times of [heavy] rain or [extreme] heat and in order to provide [a place of worship] for the Muslims; and God bears witness that they are truly liars, in this [claim of theirs]. They had asked the Prophet (s) to perform prayers in it, and so the following was revealed:

Never stand, [never] perform prayer, there: and so he sent a group of men to destroy and burn it, and in its place they left a refuse pit where decaying cadavers would be dumped. A mosque which was founded, one whose foundations were built, upon piety from the first day, constructed the day you arrived in Medina (dār al-hijra) — this was the mosque of Qubā’, as mentioned in Bukhārī — is worthier, than that [other one], for you to stand, to perform prayer, therein; in it are men, namely, the Ansār, who love to purify themselves; and God loves those who purify themselves (muttahhirīn: the original tā’ [of mutatahhirūn] has been assimilated with the tā’) that is, He will reward them. Ibn Khuzayma reported in his Sahīh [by way of an isnād] from [‘Uwaym] b. Sā‘ida that: ‘The Prophet (s) came to them at the mosque of Qubā’ and said, “God, exalted be He, has praised handsomely the way you purify yourselves in the story about your mosque, so what is this purification which you perform?” They said, “By God, O Messenger of God, all that we know is that we used to have Jews in our vicinity and they used to wash their behinds after defecation, and so we began to wash in the way they did”’. According to one hadīth reported by al-Bazzār [they said]: ‘We use stones [to scrape off remnants] and follow this with water’; to which he [the Prophet] said, ‘That is the way [for proper purification]. Let this be your way’.

Is he who founded his building upon fear of God and, in hope of, beatitude, from Him, better, or he who founded his building upon the brink, the edge, of a bank, an overhang, that is crumbling, about to collapse (read juruf or jurf) so that it toppled with him, so that it collapsed [taking] with it the one who built it, into the fire of Hell?: [this is] an excellent similitude for building upon that which constitutes the opposite of fear of God and [for] what it leads to; the interrogative is meant as an affirmative: in other words, the former is the better, which is the likeness of the [building of the] mosque of Qubā’, while the latter is the likeness of the mosque of ‘harm’ (masjid al-dirār). And God guides not the evildoing folk.

The buildings which they have built will never cease to be a misgiving, a point of doubt, in their hearts unless their hearts are cut, torn, to pieces, such that they die; and God is Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in what He does with them.

Indeed God has purchased from the believers their lives and their possessions, that they expend it in obedience of Him — for example by striving in His way — so that theirs will be [the reward of] Paradise: they shall fight in the way of God and they shall kill and be killed (this sentence is independent and constitutes an explication of the [above-mentioned] ‘purchase’; a variant reading has the passive verb come first [sc. fa-yuqtalūna wa-yaqtulūn, ‘they shall be killed and shall kill’], meaning that some of them are killed while those who remain, fight on); that is a promise which is binding (both [wa‘dan, ‘promise’, and haqqan, ‘binding’] are verbal nouns, and are in the accusative on account of their omitted [implicit] verbs) upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’ān; and who fulfils his covenant better than God?, that is, no one is better in fulfilling it. Rejoice then (there is a shift from the third [to second] person here) in this bargain of yours which you have made, for that, bargain, is the supreme triumph, the one that secures the ultimate goal.

Those who repent (al-tā’ibūna is in the nominative as a laudative, the subject being implicit), from idolatry and hypocrisy, those who worship, who devote their worship sincerely to God, those who give praise, to Him in every state, those who fast, those who bow, those who prostrate themselves, that is, those who perform prayers, those who enjoin decency and forbid to indecency, those who maintain God’s bounds, His rulings, by implementing them, and give good tidings to the believers, of Paradise.

The following was revealed regarding the Prophet (s) asking forgiveness for his uncle Abū Tālib, and some of the Companions asking forgiveness for their idolatrous parents: It is not for the Prophet, and those who believe, to ask forgiveness for the idolaters, even though they be kinsmen, relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are inhabitants of the Hell-fire, for having died as disbelievers.

Abraham’s prayer for the forgiveness of his father was only because of a promise he had made to him, when he said to him, I will ask my Lord forgiveness for you [Q. 19:47], in the hope that he would submit [to God]; but when it became clear to him that he was an enemy of God, upon his death as an disbeliever, he declared himself innocent of him, and refrained from asking forgiveness for him; truly Abraham was soft of heart, making frequent entreaty and supplication [to God], forbearing, enduring harm patiently.

And God would never send a people astray after He had guided them, to Islam, until He had made clear to them that which they should be wary of, in the way of deeds, but when they are not wary of it, then they deserve to be sent astray. Surely God is Knower of all things, including who deserves to be sent astray, or to be guided.

Surely to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth. He gives life and He makes to die; and you do not have, O mankind, besides God, that is, other than Him, any protector, to preserve you from Him, or helper, to defend you against His hurt.

God has truly relented, that is, He has [truly] perpetuated His relenting, to the Prophet and the Emigrants and the Helpers who followed him in the hour of hardship, that is, during the time of this [hardship], which was their predicament during the raid at Tabūk, where two men would share a single date, ten men would take turns on one camel, and where the heat became so intense that they resorted to drinking filth; after the hearts of a party of them had almost deviated (read either as tazīghu or yazīghu), [had almost] inclined away from following him, in favour of staying behind due to the hardship that afflicted them, then He relented to them, by making them steadfast. Truly He is Gentle, Merciful to them.

And, He relented, to the three who were left behind, [formerly denied] His relenting to them, for the same reason [as those mentioned above], when the earth was straitened for them, for all its breadth, that is, despite its vastness, so they could find no place wherein to feel secure, and their souls, that is, their hearts, were straitened for them, because of the anxiety and their [sense of] alienation resulting from the delay of God’s relenting to them [with mercy], such that they [their souls] could not find happiness or solace; until they thought, they were certain, that (read the softened an) there is no refuge from God except in Him. Then He turned [relenting] to them, He made them successful in finding repentance, that they might also turn [in repentance]. Truly God is the Relenting, the Merciful.

O you who believe, fear God, by refraining from [acts of] disobedience to Him, and be with those who are truthful, in [their] faith and covenants, by adhering to sincerity.