At-Tawbah 9:31–36

Commentary

The four verses cited above mention how astray the learned and the devoted and the abstaining among the Jews and Christians had gone and what blasphemies of word and deed they had come up with. The word: اَحبَار (ahbar) is the plural form of حبر (hibr) and رھبان (ruhban) is the plural of راھب (rahib). Hibr refers to a religious scholar among the Jews and Christians while a rahib denotes someone who devotes to worship and abstains from a worldly role in life.

In the first verse (31), it has been said that these people have taken their rabbis and monks as gods beside Allah and they have done the same with Sayyidna ` Isa ibn Maryam (علیہما السلام) whom they have given the status of their Lord. This is, of course, obvious in the case of Sayyidna ` Isa (علیہ السلام) whom they took to be the son of God and did not demur from saying so. As for the charge against them that they had taken their rabbis and monks as gods, it has its reason. They used to call them as their Lord in clear terms, but even if it is presumed that they did not believe their religious leaders to be their gods, they had virtually transferred to them the right to be obeyed which is the right of Allah Jalla Thana'uh, absolutely and exclusively. They would, so to say, follow the dictates of these leaders under all circumstance - even if their dictates happen to be against Allah and His Messenger. With that attitude, one is bound to land in a valley of no return. How can one go about obeying someone even if that person says things contrary to the dictates of Allah and His Messenger? And how can one who has reached this ultimate limit still not refuse to obey that person? This is like taking someone as god - an act of flagrant blasphemy, an open kufr.

This tells us that the present verse is not related in any way to the popular religious issue of following a particular juristic school (taqlid) which has two main aspects. Firstly, common people who are not aware of religious precepts and their details trust ` Ulama' and follow their fatawa. Secondly, Mujtahid Imams are followed in juristic issues requiring Ijtihad. So, this verse has no bearing on that count because such following is, in real terms, nothing but the following of the dictates of Allah and His Rasul Those whom Allah has blessed with knowledge and insight have a direct access to the original resources of Shari'ah whereby they know what Allah and His Rasul have said. They see it and act accordingly. The unaware masses act in accordance with the same injunctions by asking those who have knowledge. Then, there are those who have knowledge but are not competent enough to occupy the station of Ijtihad, they too follow the Mujtahid Imams in matters requiring ijtihad. This following is in accordance with the injunction of the Holy Qur'an and is nothing but obedience to Allah Ta` ala - as says the Qur'an: فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ‌ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ. It means: ` If you yourself are not aware of the injunctions of Allah and the Messenger, act by asking the people of knowledge 1- 16:43.'

1. The basic point of difference is that the one who follows an imam does not believe him to be an independent point of obedience. lie simply consults him as an interpreter of the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah. That is why he will not follow him if there is a clear clash between his view and a clear-cut ruling given by the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah. The case of Jews and Christians is totally different. They believe their religious leaders (rabbis and popes) as law-givers. They believe them to be infallible who cannot commit mistakes and their rulings are to be obeyed in any case, even though they contradict the ruling given by the scriptures. For more details on the subject, see my book on 'Taqlid' or on 'Uloom al-Qur'an.' (Muhammad Taqi Usmani)

In sum, the masses of people among the Jews and Christians had ignored Scriptures, Divine commandments and the teachings of apostles totally and, in its place, they had taken the word and deed of self-serving scholars and ignorant pseudo-devotees as the core of their religion. This is what has been condemned in the verse.

Then, it was said that these people chose to take the way of error although they were asked by Allah to worship only one God who is free and pure from what they associated with Him. This verse limits itself to saying that they followed the false and obeyed people other than Allah, something they were not permitted to do. In the verse that follows (32), mentioned there is another error they make. It is said that they do not stop at the error they have already made. They, rather, like to compound their errors when they try to subvert Divine guidance and black out the Faith of Truth. The statement has been dressed in a si-militude - ` they want to blow out the Light of Allah with their mouths' - although, this is something they cannot do. Allah Ta` ala has already decided that He shall see to it that His Light, that is, the Religion of Islam, reaches its perfection, no matter how displeasing this may turn out to be for those who disbelieve.

After that, the same subject has been further stressed in the third verse (33) by saying that Allah Ta` ala has sent His Messenger with guidance, that is, the Qur'an, and with the Faith of Truth, that is, Islam, in order to have it prevail over all other faiths. Appearing in almost the same words, there are several other verses of the Holy Qur'an promising that the religion of Islam shall be made to prevail over all other faiths of the world.

This glad tiding regarding the ascendancy of Islam is, as in Tafsir Mazhari, for most times and circumstances. In a Hadith from Sayydina Miqdad ؓ ، the Holy Prophet ﷺ said: No mud or mortar home shall remain on the face of the earth where the word of Islam has not entered with the honor of the honored and the disgrace of the disgraced. Whoever Allah blesses with honor shall embrace Islam and whoever is to face disgrace shall not, though, accept Islam but shall become a subject of the Islamic government. This promise of Allah Ta` ala was fulfilled. For about a thousand years, the primacy of Islam remained operative throughout the world.

How this Light of Allah reached its perfection during the blessed period of the Holy Prophet ﷺ and the most righteous and worthy elders of the Muslim Community is a spectacle the world has already witnessed. Then, in future too, in terms of its legitimacy and truth for all times to come, the religion of Islam is a perfect religion no sensible person would elect to criticize. For this reason, this Faith of Truth, in terms of its arguments and proofs, has always been powerful. And, should Muslims follow this religion fully and faithfully, out-ward ascendancy, power and governance also turn out to be its inevitable results. As proved by the annals of the history of Islam, whenever Muslims acted whole-heartedly in accordance with the Qur'an and Sunnah, no impediment in their way could defeat their determination and their presence was felt all over the world as a dominant force. And whenever and wherever they have reached the limits of being subjugated or oppressed, it was but the evil consequence of heedlessness to and contravention of the injunctions of Qur'an and Sunnah which came before them. As for the Religion of Truth, it stood its grounds as always, august and protected.

In the fourth verse (34), the address is to Muslims but the subject taken up concerns the conduct of rabbis and monks among the Jews and Christians, a conduct which led common people astray. Perhaps, the address to Muslims indicates a purpose behind the description of the conduct of Jewish rabbis and Christian monks. The purpose is to warn them as well in order that they too remain alert against such conditions prevailing among Muslims.

The verse states that many rabbis and monks among the Jews and Christians eat up the wealth of the people by false means and prevent (them) from the way of Allah.

Most rabbis and monks among the Jews and Christians were involved in this practice - and under such conditions, people generally tend to make a sweeping statement and call everyone bad. But, at this place, the Holy Qur'an, by adding the word: کَثیِرا (kathira: many), has prompted Muslims to mind their words even when dealing with enemies. It was clearly demonstrated here by not attributing the practice to all of them. Instead, what was said here was that many of them do so. Then, it was said that they were not doing the right thing when they eat up the wealth of people by false means. ` False means' refers to their practice of giving fatwa (religious edict or ruling) counter to the injunction of Torah, for money. In doing so, on occasions, they would misinterpret Divine injunctions through concealment and falsification. Further on from here, yet another error of their conduct was pointed out by saying that they were unfortunate people who, not only that they themselves had gone astray but were also ready to prevent others from seeking the way of Allah in the hope of finding right guidance. The reason is that people, when they see their leaders doing things like that, the inherent love for truth in them dies out. In addition to that, when they start basing their conduct on such false rulings, they end up taking that error and waywardness to be as good as correct.

Since this disease among the rabbis and monks of the Jews and Christians - that they give false rulings for money - showed up because of worldly greed and love for money, the verse takes up the subject in its own way. It says that excess in love for money and property produces bad results, even punishment if not spent in the way of Allah, and suggests how to get rid of this disease. The exact words of the text are:

وَالَّذِينَ يَكْنِزُونَ الذَّهَبَ وَالْفِضَّةَ وَلَا يُنفِقُونَهَا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَبَشِّرْ‌هُم بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ

As for those who accumulate gold and silver and do not spend it in the way of Allah, give them the ` good' news of a painful punishment.

The words: وَلَا يُنفِقُونَهَا (and do not spend it) indicate that people who spend in the way of Allah as necessary, for them the rest of their accumulated wealth brings no harm.

In Hadith too, the Holy Prophet ﷺ has said: Wealth for which Zakah has been paid is not included under: کَنَزتُم (kanaztum: you have accumulated). (Abu Dawud, Ahmad and others)

This tells us that keeping wealth which remains after taking out Zakah is no sin.

The majority of Muslim jurists and Imams have taken this approach. It should be noted that the pronoun in وَلَا یُنفِقُونَھَا (and do not spend it) reverts to فِضَّۃ (fiddah) which means silver. Two things, gold and silver, were mentioned immediately earlier but the pronoun was made to revert to silver only. Tafsir Mazhari takes it to be a clear indicator of the rule that should a person have a little of both gold and silver, his threshold (nisab) will be determined in terms of silver. His Zakah will be paid by calculating the price of gold in terms of the price of silver.

Explained in the fifth verse (35) is the detail of the ` painful punishment' referred to at the end of verse 34. There, it has been said: يَوْمَ يُحْمَىٰ عَلَيْهَا فِي نَارِ‌ جَهَنَّمَ فَتُكْوَىٰ بِهَا جِبَاهُهُمْ وَجُنُوبُهُمْ وَظُهُورُ‌هُمْ ۖ هَٰذَا مَا كَنَزْتُمْ لِأَنفُسِكُمْ فَذُوقُوا مَا كُنتُمْ تَكْنِزُونَ ﴿35﴾(on the day it will be heated up in the fire of Jahannam, then their foreheads and their sides and their backs shall be branded with it: "This is what you had accumulated for yourselves. So, taste what you have been accumulating". It means that this ` painful punishment' will be for those who do not pay Zakah. It will come on a day when the gold and silver accumulated by them will be heated up in the Fire of Jahannam.

Then, their foreheads, sides and backs shall be branded with it, and they shall be told, as a sort of verbal punishment, that it was what they had accumulated for themselves, and in consequence, they better have a taste of what they had accumulated. The return of a deed is the deed itself. That which was accumulated illegally or that which was accumulated legally but without having paid its Zakah ultimately became, by itself, the punishment of these people.

In this verse, mention has been made of branding foreheads, sides and backs. Either it means the whole body or these three parts have been particularized for the reason that a miser who does not like to spend his wealth in the way of Allah would usually greet a needy visitor looking for charity or Zakah with a forehead all wrinkled with distaste. After that, when to avoid him, he tries to turn away to the right or the left side. And if the needy person still persists, he would turn his back on him. Perhaps, the forehead, the sides and the back were thus particularized for this punishment.

Commentary

Mentioned in the previous verses were the errors and misdeeds of disbelievers and Mushriks who persisted with their disbelief and kept associating others in the pristine divinity of Allah. In the present two verses, mentioned there is another bad custom prevailing in Arabia since its age of ignorance - which Muslims have been instructed to ab-stain from. That bad custom relates to a chain of happenings. Details go back to the distant past since when a year was accepted as having twelve months by the religious codes of all past prophets. Out of these twelve months, four were considered sacred, therefore, worthy of great reverence. They were three consecutive months of Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, Muharram, and the month of Rajab.

All religious codes of past prophets agree that every act of worship during these four months is more reward-worthy - and should someone commit a sin during these months, the curse and punishment resulting from it is also more blameworthy. Under these past religious codes, fighting and killing was prohibited during these months.

Since the Arabs of Makkah al-Mukarramah are the progeny of Sayyidna Ibrahim (علیہ السلام) through Sayyidna Ismail (علیہ السلام) they all professed belief in Sayyidna Ibrahim (علیہ السلام) as a prophet and messenger of Allah and claimed to follow his Shari` ah. However, as fighting, killing and hunting was also prohibited during these four sacred months among the followers of the Ibrahimi community, the people of the Arab age of ignorance found the implementation of this injunction extremely hard. The reason was that, during the pagan period, fighting and killing had become the only vocation for them. Therefore, in order to make this restriction somewhat easy on them, they spun out all sorts of excuses to satisfy their self-serving motives. Whenever they needed to fight during one of the sacred months, or whenever a sacred month approached while they were already fighting, then, they would say: This year, this month is not sacred. The next month will be the sacred one. For example, when Muharram arrived, they would say that ` this year, the month of Muharram is not sacred, instead of that, the month of S afar will be sacred'. And if they had some other exigency, they would say, ` this year, the month of Rabi' al-Awwal will be sacred;' or say, ` this year the month of Safar has come earlier and Muharram will come later.' Thus, in one stroke, they made the month of Muharram the month of Safar! In short, they would somehow complete the count of four month during one year, but would not bother to retain the order and signification of what was divinely determined. It was up to them to give any name to any month, call it Dhu al-Hijjah or call it Ramadan or make one come earlier and make the other come later. If another emergency came, for example, when they would remain en-gaged in fighting for a period as long as ten months leaving only two months to the year, then, on this occasion, they would increase the number of months in a year saying, ` this year will be of fourteen months.' In this way, they would make the remaining four months the sacred months.

In short, they did show their reverence for the Ibrahimi faith at least by doing it during four months of the year when they would abstain from fighting and killing. But, they did not observe the order of the months in a year according to which four of them were fixed as the sacred months. This was what they juggled with seeking interpretations to suit their needs or fancies.

The outcome was that, during those days, it had become difficult to determine as to which month was Ramadan or Shawwal, or Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah or Rajab. When Makkah al-Mukarramah was conquered in the 8th year of Hijrah and the Holy Prophet ﷺ sent Sayyidna Abu Bakr ؓ to make the proclamation of withdrawal from disbelievers and Mushriks at the Hajj season of Hijrah year 9, this month was, according to the genuine calculation, the month of Dhu al-Hijjah. But, according to the same old custom of the Jahiliyyah, this month was declared to be that of Dhu al-Qa'dah - and, that year, according to them, not Dhu al-Hijjah, but Dhu al-Qa'dah was fixed to be the month of Hajj. Then came the Hijrah year 10 which was the year the Holy Prophet ﷺ went for his last Hajj. As nature would have it, this brought about a unique arrangement when the genuine month was that of Dhu al-Hijjah and, according to the ar-bitrary reckoning of the people of Jahiliyyah too, that turned out to be Dhu al-Hijjah itself. Therefore, the Holy Prophet ﷺ said in his address at Mina: اِنَّ الزَّمان قد استدار کَھَیٔتہ یوم خَلَقَ اللہُ السَّمٰوَات والارض (Time has come back to its position Allah had set the day He created the heavens and the Earth). It means that the month, the real month of Dhu al-Hijjah, turned out to be the same month of Dhu al-Hijjah that year, even in the sight of the people of Jahiliyyah.

This was a window to the custom of Jahiliyyah, a custom that changed the number, the order and the specification of months in a year, even made deletions and alterations at will. The activity of making a few changes here and there may appear to be small and innocu-ous. A month is a month, call it by any name, it remains a month. But, things were not that simple in the given situation. These changes disturbed the implementation of Islamic laws connected with a particular month or a specific date in it. They also affected duties fixed for the be-ginning or the end of the year - such as, the injunctions of Hajj during the ten days of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah, fasting during the ten days of Muharram and the rules of Zakah at the end of the year. As a direct result of this practice, hundreds of Islamic laws were distorted making their compliance useless. In these two verses of the Holy Qur'an, Muslims have been instructed to remain on guard against the evil in this pagan custom.

Explanation of the Verses

In the first verse (36), it is said: اِنَّ عِدَّۃَ الشُّھُورِ عِند اللہِ عَشَرَ شَھراً ,(Surely, the number of months with Allah is twelve). Here, the word: عِدّہ ('iddah) appears in the sense of number and شُھُور (shuhur) is the plural of شَھر (shahr) which means month. The sense of the verse is that the number of months, in the sight of Allah, is set as twelve. No one has the right to decrease or increase it.

Then, by placing the phrase: فِی کِتَابَ اللہِ (fi kitabillah: as written in the Book of Allah), it was stressed that this numerical setting of the months stood recorded in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz) since eternity. Then, by saying: یَومَ خَلَقَ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَ الاَرضَ (on the day He created the heavens and the Earth), it was indicated that the Divine decree was, though, promulgated in eternity, but this order and setting of the months came into being when the heavens and the Earth were created.

After that, it was said: مِنھَآ اَربَعَۃُ حُرُمُ (of which there are Four Sacred Months). It means that, out of these twelve months, four are sacred. They have been called حُرُمُ Hurum (sanctified ones) in the sense that fighting and killing is prohibited during these month, and also in the sense that these months are blessed and it is obligatory to hold them in due esteem and that acts of worship during these become more reward worthy. The first injunction out of the two was abrogated in the Shari’ ah of Islam. But, the second one, that of increased reverence, esteem and devotion to ` Ibadah during this period still remains operative in Islam.

In his addressl of the Day of Sacrifice2 during the Last Hajj3, the Holy Prophet ﷺ explained these months by saying: ` Three months are consecutive - Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah, Muharram - and one month is that of Rajab.' But, there were two sayings of the Arabs regarding the month of Rajab. Some tribes used to call the month we know as Ramadan the month of Rajab while, as seen by the tribe of Mudar, Rajab was the month which comes in between Jumada ath-Thaniah and Sha` ban. Therefore, the Holy Prophet ﷺ by mentioning this month as ` Rajab Mudar' - also made it clear that it means the month of Rajab which is in between Jumada ath-Thaniah and Sha` ban.

1. Khutbah.

2. Yowmu 'n-Nahr, a term used for ‘Idu ‘l-Adha, the Feast or Festival of Sacrifice.

3. Hujjatu'I-Wada'.

Thereafter appears the statement: ذالکَ الدِّین القَیِّمُ (That is the right faith). It means that keeping the setting and serial order of months, specially the injunctions pertaining to the Four Sacred Months, according to the very original decree of Allah Almighty is the right faith to hold. Making any changes, alterations, additions or deletions there-in is a sign of crookedness in comprehension and temperament.

The next sentence: فلا تَظلِمُوا فِیھِنَّ اَنفُسَکُم do not wrong yourselves therein) means: ` Do not become unjust to your own selves either by acting against the compliance-worthy injunctions pertaining to these months, or by not observing proper respect for them, or by falling short in devoting yourselves to ` Ibadah therein.

In his Ahkam a1-Qur'an, Imam Abu Bakr al-Jassas has said: The hint given here is that these blessed months have an exclusive characteristic of their own. Whoever devotes to ` Ibadah during these is awarded with the ability and encouragement to engage in it during the rest of the months. Similarly, a person who makes the necessary effort to stay safe from sins and other bad deeds during these months finds that remaining safe from these evils during the rest of the months of a year has become easier on him. Therefore, not making the best out of these months is a terrible loss.

Up to this point, the text has described and refuted a particular custom of Jahiliyyah practiced by the Mushriks of Makkah. At the end of the verse, the text reverts to the command, given at the beginning of the verse (5), requiring that, soon after the expiry of the treaty deadline, Jihad is obligatory against all Mushriks and disbelievers.