Al-Anfal 8:31–36

Mentioned in verses 31 and 32 is the absurd remark made by Nadr ibn Harith, a participant of the same meeting at Dar al-Nadwah, with its reply appearing in verse 33. Nadr ibn Harith was a businessman who used to travel to different countries where he had repeated opportunities of seeing religious books of the Jews and Christians as well as witnessing their modes of worship. When he heard about the accounts of past communities appearing in the Holy Qur'an, he said: قَد سَمِعنَا لَونَشَآءُ لَقُلنا مِثلَ ھٰذَآ اِن ھٰذآ اِلَّا اَسَاطیرُ الاَوَّلِینَ (we have heard, if we wish, we can say some-thing like this. It is nothing but the tales of the ancient - 31). Thereupon, some of the Companions ؓ challenged him: If you can say something like this, why would you not say it? The Qur'an had already spoken on the subject and made it the very criterion of the true and the false. The challenge of the Qur'an was beamed at the whole world. If its opponents were true, let them come up with the like of even a very small Surah. In contrast, those who claimed to stake their lives and sacrifice their wealth and children for the sake of upholding their counter-assertion could not even join up their abilities together and come out even with a small Surah which could stand on its own against the Qur'an. Now, after all this, to stand up and say that we too can say something like this, if we so wished, is something no self-respecting person would venture to say. Thus, when the Companions ؓ told him that the Qur'an was nothing but the Divine word, he tried to counter the assertion by showing his own firm adherence to his incorrect faith by saying:

اللَّهُمَّ إِن كَانَ هَٰذَا هُوَ الْحَقَّ مِنْ عِندِكَ فَأَمْطِرْ‌ عَلَيْنَا حِجَارَ‌ةً مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ أَوِ ائْتِنَا بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ

O Allah, if this be indeed the truth [ revealed ] from You, then, rain down upon us stones from the heavens, or bring upon us a painful punishment - 32.

The answer to this was given by the Qur'an itself. First, it was said: وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيُعَذِّبَهُمْ وَأَنتَ فِيهِمْ (And Allah is not to send punishment upon them while you are in their midst [ in Makkah ] - 33). The reason is that it is the customary practice of Allah Ta` ala with all blessed prophets that He would not send His punishment over a habitation where they are present until He takes out his prophets from there. This is as it happened in the case of Sayyidna Hud, Sayyidna Salih and Sayyidna Lut, may peace be upon them all. Punishment did not come as long as they remained in their towns. Punishment came when they were taken out from there. As for the Prophet of Islam ﷺ ، he was sent to this world as universal mercy. That Divine punishment would come on him while he was present in a town was an eventuality counter to his station.

In a nutshell, the answer is: Because of your hostility towards Qur'an and Islam, you very much deserve to have stones rain at you but the presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ in Makkah prohibits it. According to Imam Ibn Jarir, this part of the verse was revealed at a time when he was present in Makkah. Then, came Hijrah to Madinah where the second part was revealed as follows: وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ مُعَذِّبَهُمْ وَهُمْ يَسْتَغْفِرُ‌ونَ (nor would Allah send punishment on them while they are seeking forgiveness - 33). It means that following his migration to Madinah, though the preventive factor of a mass punishment stood removed as he was not present there in Makkah, yet there did remain another factor preventing the coming of mass punishment even at that time since many weaker ones among Muslims who were unable to migrate had remained behind in Makkah and they were the ones who kept praying to Allah Ta` ala for their forgiveness. It was for their sake that punishment was not sent upon the people of Makkah.

When, even these blessed souls migrated to Madinah, the sentence appearing in the next verse (34): وَمَا لَهُمْ أَلَّا يُعَذِّبَهُمُ اللَّهُ وَهُمْ يَصُدُّونَ عَنِ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَ‌امِ (And what is with them that Allah should not punish them while they pre-vent [ people ] from al-masjid al-Haram) was revealed.

The sense is that there were two hindrances to the coming of punishment. They both have been removed. The Holy Prophet ﷺ was no more there in Makkah, nor there remained those forgiveness-seeking Muslims in that city. Thus, there appeared to be no hindrance to the coming of punishment. Particularly so, because the people of Makkah were already deserving of punishment for their hostility to Islam while on top of which - despite being themselves incapable of any act of worship worth the name - they had started preventing people who wished to go into al-masjid al-Haram for ` Ibadah, ` Umrah and Tawaf. So, at that stage, their entitlement to punishment had become mature and complete. Consequently, it was through the Conquest of Makkah that punishment was sent upon them.

The event relating to the preventing of people from entering almasjid al-Haram took place at the expedition of Hudaibiyah when the Holy Prophet ﷺ had gone there with the intention of making ` Umrah with his Companions ؓ . The disbelievers of Makkah stopped him from entering the city and compelled him and all his Companions ؓ to undo their Ihram and return back. This happened in the Hijrah year 6. Two years later, in Hijrah 8, Makkah was conquered. Thus, it was at the hands of Muslims that punishment was sent upon them.

This explanation given by Ibn Jarir rests on the assumption that the factor of the Holy Prophet's presence in Makkah should be considered as the hindrance to punishment while others have maintained that the presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ in the world is itself the prohibitive factor against any mass punishment. As long as he graces the world with his presence, no punishment can come over his people. The reason for this is obvious. The state of his call to prophet-hood is different. It is not similar to that of other blessed prophets as they were sent to particular areas or tribes. When they left these and arrived at some new place, punishment would overtake the people they left behind. This is contrary to the case of the Holy Prophet ﷺ whose prophethood and messenger ship is universal until the Last Day of this mortal life. So, the place of his blessed arrival and the scope of his mission as a Messenger of Allah extends to the whole world. Therefore, as long as he is present in any part of the world, no punishment can visit his people.

Based on this Tafsir, it would mean that the doings of the people of Makkah demanded nothing less than that they be struck with a rain of stones. But, two things became a hindrance to this punishment: (1) The presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ in the world and (2) the seeking of forgiveness by the people of Makkah because they, despite being polytheists and disbelievers, used to say: غُفرَانک غُفرَانک (we seek Your forgiveness, we seek Your forgiveness) in their Tawaf. Though, this seeking of forgiveness by them coupled with disbelief (shirk) may not be beneficial in the Hereafter, but the benefit of doing that too in this world which accrued to them was that they escaped punishment in the mortal world. The standing truth is that Allah Ta` ala does not let anyone's deed go to waste. If disbelievers and polytheists do something good, its return is given to them right here in this world. As for what is said after that - 'and what is with them that Allah should not punish them while they prevent [ people ] from al-masjid al-Haram - it would then mean that the absence of punishment in the world should not embolden these people to become arrogant and complacent thinking that they were no sinners or that punishment would not come upon them at all. May be, not in the mortal world, but there is just no escape or deliverance from the punishment of the Hereafter. Given this Tafsir, the punishment mentioned in: مَا لَهُمْ أَلَّا يُعَذِّبَهُمُ (and what is with them that Allah should not punish them - 34) would be referring to the punishment of the Hereafter.

To sum up, it can be said that the verses cited here leave beneficial information for us: (1) That Allah Ta` ala does not send punishment upon a locality in which people seek His forgiveness. This is His customary practice. (2) That no punishment would come upon the community of the Holy Prophet ﷺ believing or disbelieving, while he is present among them. This is as it came to pass in the case of the people of Sayyidna Nuh, Lut and Shu'ayb (علیہم السلام) . Their people were destroyed to the last person. Should some punishment visit individuals or a limited number of them, that would not be considered contrary to it - as was said by the Holy Prophet ﷺ that the punishment of خسف khasf and مسخ maskh will visit his Ummah. Khasf means to sink into the ground or be swallowed by it while Maskh means disfiguration and transformation into an animal such as monkey or swine. The intimation intended is that there will be those limited few individuals of the community who would be visited by such punishments as well.

As for the phenomenon of the presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ in this world, it will remain operative right through the Last Day of Qiyamah because his mission of prophethood is operative till then. In addition to that, the Holy Prophet ﷺ is alive even at this time, though the nature and form of this life is different from his previous life. Now, any effort at this stage to engage in the debate as to what is the difference between these two lives will be ineffectual and futile - because, nothing that this community of Muslims has to do in terms of its religious or worldly duties depends on it. Neither has the Holy Prophet ﷺ himself, nor his noble Sahabah ؓ have liked such wasteful and unnecessary debates. In fact, they have prohibited it.

The essence of the submission is that the marvel of the Holy Prophet ﷺ being alive in his resting place and the unbroken continuity of his prophethood right through the Last Day of Qiyamah prove that he is in this world right through Qiyamah, therefore, this community of his shall remain safe against any mass punishment until that fateful Day.

Commentary

It was said in previous verses that the disbelievers of Makkah were though deserving, because of their disbelief and denial, of heavenly punishment coming down upon them, but the presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ in Makkah was a prohibitive factor against the coming of a mass punishment on them. Then, after his migration to Madinah, such punishment would still not come upon them because of the weaker ones among Muslims who, while living in Makkah, kept seeking forgiveness from Allah.

In the verses quoted above, it has been stated that though their due punishment was advanced till later either for the sake of the Holy Prophet ﷺ or in consideration of the weaker ones among Muslims, they should not make the mistake of thinking that they are no more deserving of punishment. The fact is that their being deserving of punishment is loud and clear. Then, other than their disbelief and denial, there are many more crimes committed by them because of which punishment should be visiting them positively. The first two verses (34, 35) list three such crimes by them.

1. Firstly, these people are themselves just not worthy of going into the Sacred Mosque and devote to acts of worship there as due - and these very people prevent Muslims who wish to go there to devote themselves to acts of worship, Salah, Tawaf etc. Here, the reference is to the event at Hudaibiyah when, in the Hijrah year 6, the Holy Prophet ﷺ had reached there with his Sahabah ؓ in order to perform ` Umrah at Makkah - and the disbelievers of Makkah had prevented him from doing so and had compelled him to go back.

2. Secondly, for no sane reason, these people assume and claim that they were the custodians of the Sacred Mosque whereby they would let anyone they permit come in and not permit anyone they did not wish to come in.

This thinking of theirs was a combination of two misunderstandings. To begin with, they took themselves to be the custodians of the Sacred Mosque although no Kafir can become the custodian of any mosque. Then, they thought that a custodian had the right to stop anyone he wished from entering into the mosque - while, a masjid or mosque is a House of God and no one has the right to stop anyone from coming in it. Of course, exempted are particular situations in which there be the apprehension of someone desecrating the mosque or causing pain to other makers of Salah there. For example, the Holy Prophet ﷺ said: Shield your masjid from small children, and insane individuals, and from mutual disputations. Small children mean children who have no sense of purity or impurity, therefore, the danger of the later is predominant. Then, the same danger of impurity as well as the danger of causing pain to those making Salah exists in the case of someone insane. As for mutual disputations, it amounts to desecration of the masjid and is also a source of causing pain to people making Salah there.

In the light of the Hadith quoted above, the custodian (mutawalli ( of the masjid does have the right not to allow such small children and insane individuals into the masjid, and see to it that no one indulges in mutual disputes in the masjid - but, in the absence of such situa-tions, no custodian of a masjid has the right to stop a Muslim from coming into the masjid.

In the first verse cited above, it has been considered sufficient to state that there was no way these people could be taken as custodians of the Sacred Mosque when the rule was that only God-fearing Muslims could become its custodian. From here we learn that the custodian of a masjid should be a practicing-observing Muslim, in faith and conduct. And there are some commentators who take the pronoun in: إِنْ أَوْلِيَاؤُهُ as reverting to Allah Ta` ala which would mean: only the God-fearing can be the Awliya of Allah.'

According to the Tafsir mentioned immediately above, the outcome of the verse would be that those who, despite acting contrary to Shari` ah and Sunnah, claim to be a Waliyy of Allah are liars and those who take such people to be a Waliyy of Allah are down in deception.

3. The third crime of these people, other than the filth of Kufr and Shirk which was already their way of life, was the state of their doings which were low down, much lower than the ordinary human level. A sampling of this was pointed to when it was said that the act of prayer which these people called Salah was nothing but that they would whistle with their mouths and clap with their hands. It is obvious that no reasonable person would call these acts 'worship' and 'prayer,' in fact, not even a regular human act. Therefore, at the end of the verse (35), it was said: فَذُوقُوا الْعَذَابَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَكْفُرُ‌ونَ (So, taste the punishment, because you used to disbelieve), that is, the denouement of their disbelief and crimes is that they must now taste the punishment of Allah. 'Punishment' referred to here may mean the punishment of the Hereafter, as well as the punishment in the present world which came upon them in the battle of Badr at the hands of Muslims.

After that, described in verse 36, there is another event relating to the disbelievers of Makkah when they collected a huge fund to raise a powerful striking force against Muslims and then spent it to wipe out the true faith and its upholders. But, what happened finally was that lost to them was not only the wealth they had pooled together but that they, rather than achieve their objective, were themselves subjected to utter disgrace.

The event as reported by Muhammad ibn Ishaq from Sayyidna ` Abdullah ibn ` Abbas ؓ is as follows. When the defeated, injured and surviving disbelievers of Makkah returned from the battle of Badr back to their city, the people whose fathers or sons were killed in Jihad went to Abu Sufyan, the leader of the trade caravan. They told him: You know that this war was fought in defence of your trade caravan as a result of which we had to suffer from all this loss of lives and properties. Therefore, we wish that we be helped by this corporate trading venture so that we can take our revenge against Muslims in the future. The people of the trading company accepted their plea and gave them a huge amount which they spent on their bid for victory in the battle of' Uhud. In this bid too, which was to avenge their defeat in the battle of Badr, they met a sad end and were overpowered as before. With the shock of defeat, left for them was the added remorse for having lost all that wealth they had invested in the unsuccessful challenge.

In this verse, the Holy Qur'an has foretold the Holy Prophet ﷺ about this event much before it took place. It said there: "Surely, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to prevent (people) from the way of Allah. So, they shall spend it, then it will become remorse for them, then they shall be overpowered -36." Consequently, this is how it happened at the battle of 'Uhud. They spent everything they had collected. Then, they were overpowered as a result of which, on top of the shock of defeat, they were smitten by the remorse for having lost the wealth they had invested in their venture.

Al-Baghawi and some other commentators have attributed the subject of this verse to the expenses incurred on the battle of Badr itself. According to them, the thousand strong army of disbelievers which had gone to confront Muslims in the battle of Badr was already paid for. All expenses of their maintenance were guaranteed by twelve chiefs of Makkah, included among them being Abu Jahl, ` Utbah, Shaybah and others. It goes without saying that the cost of transporting and feeding one thousand men must have been enormous. This being the state of affairs, these people not only that they felt bad about their defeat, they were also extremely remorseful about having lost their wealth. (Mazhari)

At the end of the verse (36), given there is the evil end of these people in terms of the Hereafter: وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُ‌وا إِلَىٰ جَهَنَّمَ يُحْشَرُ‌ونَ (And those who disbelieve shall be gathered into Jahannam).

In the verse under study, the mention of an evil end of spending wealth to stop people from following the true faith also includes the disbelievers of today who spend enormous wealth in the name of hospitals, educational institutions and charities only to stop people from following Islam and to attract them to their call for the false. Similarly, also included here are all those who have gone astray, those who spend their wealth to invite people to listen to doubts and superstitions they have generated into the established collective beliefs of Is-lam. But, Allah Ta` a1a has His ways of keeping the faith revealed by Him protected. There are many occasions when it is openly noticed that such people fail to achieve their objective despite having spent huge amount of money and materials.