Surah Al Taubah , 9 : Prologue

friends, dato and tanseri,

put yourselves in nabi's shoes.
in  the 9th year post hijrah, you asked saidina abu bakr to head the haj mission, while you stayed back in madinah.

in the next year you yourself head the haj mission.
you entered makkah with your head bowed, almost touching the hump of your camel.
your entourage was over a 14,000.
there was hushed silence amongst the makkan quraish, dignitaries such as abusuffian et al, no where to be seen.

truth finally prevail over falsehood without bloodshed in makkah.


dr nik howk

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prof quraish shihab' s commentary on ayat 11 to 22,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdI43YxgSVA&t=944s

No aggression was committed by the Muslims, nor were they planning any aggression or breach of agreement. One detects, in fact, a certain degree fo fear and apprehension on the part of the Muslims, who felt that those acts of intimidation indicated confidence and strength in the enemy camps. God sought to allay that fear by urging the Muslims to keep up the struggle and face the enemy head-on:

"And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief - Lo! they have no binding oaths - in order that they may desist," (12) . 

Trust and honesty spring from faith and commitment to principle; the unscrupulous and devious cannot be trusted. The urging and prompting continue:

Will ye not fight a folk who broke their solemn pledges, and purposed to drive out the messenger and did attack you first? What! Fear ye them? Now Allah hath more right that ye should fear Him, if ye are believers (13)

AS we read on, it becomes clear that the group singled out for attack were neither men of peace, nor people who could be trusted. Rather, they were people with deep- seated grudges who had been agitating and instigating aggression and ferment against Islam and Muslims for a considerable time. As these are further exposed, the surah's tone becomes even more forceful:

Fight them! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them, and He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers. (14) And He will remove the anger of their hearts. Allah relenteth toward whom He will. Allah is Knower, Wise. (15)

Not a trace of warmongering or aggression against innocent or peaceable people is to be found in this passage. The fact is that to describe this surah as the turning point in Islam's attitude towards war is a gross misunderstanding. Muslims have always been and will continue to be peace-loving people, using open debate and persuasive peaceful means to introduce their religious beliefs and the principles of their way of life, and refusing to be intimidated or coerced.

Before the revelation of this surah, Arab paganism had been tolerated for twenty-two years. Even so, the non-Muslim Arabs continued to treat Islam as an outlawed religion in Makkah. They refused to recognize the new Muslim state emerging in Madinah and insisted on waging war against it, which resulted in some thirty battles and skirmishes. Arab casulaties in all those long years of confrontation did not exceed two hundred; a figure that cannot be compared with the number of Protestants slaughtered by the French Catholics in the famous 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris. Indeed, over those twenty-two years, the Muslims were guided by the Qur'anic instructions that said:

Unto this, then, summon (O Muhammad). And be thou upright as thou art commanded, and follow not their lusts, but say: I believe in whatever scripture Allah hath sent down, and I am commanded to be just among you. Allah is our Lord and your Lord. Unto us our works and unto you your works; no argument between us and you. Allah will bring us together, and unto Him is the journeying. (al-shura: 15)

Unfortunately, it all proved to be in vain. The motto of " you keep your religion and I shall keep mine," which the Muslims raised, had been rejected. The Arabs insisted on armed confrontation, and that was when the Muslims gave them four months to decide either to change their opinion and refrain from formenting trouble or leave the  region which had by then become a Muslim domain. The only other law set out by Islam at that time was that unbelievers should no longer be allowed to perform the pilgrimage to Makkah and no one should worship naked at the Ka'aba, as was the custom of pagan Arabs. All the idols around the Ka'aba were destroyed and Makkah purged of all form of idol worship once and for all. This was affirmed in the surah thus:

He only shall tend Allah's sanctuaries who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due and feareth none save Allah. For such (only) is it possible that they can be of the rightly guided. (18) 

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tuanku,

what an interesting week that was.

tdm and dsai are already yesterday's men......surat khabar lama.

this is how patik look at the big picture of our politics over the last 3 decades.....

dsai , for the past three decades, has been disruptive to malaysian politics.

those abim boys that cannot fit into amenu, infiltrated into pas and when they cannot fit in with haji hadi, they formed pan.

and those  that cannot stomach pas, joined amenu along with dsai way back in 1990's.

then they that got pissed off with amenu in the post 1998 debacle, formed pkr.

now pkr and pan are  in the doldrum...they are for now, surat khabar lama.

for tsmy,  it is pivotal that he let the court cases go on as per usual.

that should be his game, otherwise he perish.

if zahid and ntr go to sungai buluh, the general public will be appeased, and tsmy will be free to be the next amenu president; if he last that long.

whether amenu will percolate back to the 'old ways' , only time will tell.

the gen y's are not looking at this kindly.

in fact patik think even the royals will have to behave!

antics coming from the young punk of johore will not endear very much to the new generation....please beware.

nik howk

ps:  we move on in our tafseer class to the 1st 10 ayats of surah al taubah.

very daunting task ahead, for the new government, much compounded by the novel coronavirus which is really ' a proton saga with just a sport rim'. i mean tuanku, corona virus is just one of the specie of a common cold virus, with some small 'molecular' changes on it's surface.
belum masuk turbo, angkat engin atau tambah c.c pun lagi!

the world is already grinding to a halt..and this is just the beginning, from patik's vantage point!

allah, ini semua 'kerja tuhan'.
belum lagi DIA menterbalikkan gunong dan langit!
mashaallah!

we have all to brace ourselves. this is just the beginning!
a small beginning!
dah tunggang langgag dah kita.....
HE is ya Qahhar, ya Mutakabbir, ya Zaljala liwalikram...HE is also ya Rahim, ya Rahman and ya Latif.....

Reflection and commentary by prof quraish shihab,
ayat 1 to ayat 10....

[  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpM5abCODS4  ]

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Shaykh Muhammad al- Ghazali [ 1917 -1996 ], thinker, and  former doyen of the International Institute of Islamic Thought  based in Cairo, authored  more than 60 books. His  magnum opus was  " A Thermatic Commentary on The Qur'an ". He has this to say on surah al-Taubah:

THIS SURAH, also known as al-Bara'ah, was revealed firteen months before Prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AC, or twenty-two years after he began to receive the forst revelations of the Qur'an. All through those twenty-two years, the Prophet's policy towards Islam's antagonists was dictated by the Qur'anic statement:

And if they deny thee, say: Unto me my work, and unto you your work. Ye are innocent of what I do, and I am innocent of what ye do. (Yunus: 41)

It is a policy that any fair-minded person can see as non-belligerent. However, some of Islam's detractors were determined that it should not take root or find its way into the rest of Arabia. They instigated a series of military expeditions and incursions aginst the Muslims, most of which resulted in their forces being routed and finally totally overwhelmed by Islam. Nevertheless, they did not learn the lesson, and as soon as one skirmish or battle was over, they would prepare for the next one. Eventually, they ended by becoming marauding hordes and raiders threatening the stability and security of the young state in Madinah, which made it necessary for the Muslims to fight them and take decisive action against them.

This is the aim and the justification for the 'disclaimer,' given at the beginning of this surah, which was made on behalf of the Prophet through the Qur'anic revelation. Unfortunately, this has been  generally misinterpreted and maliciously misconstrued by some scholars to show that the surah was in effect a 'declaration of war' on all non- Muslims without exception. Phrases such as "...and fight the unbelievers altogether" have been culled from the text and taken to mean all non -Muslims, without exception , omitting the rest of the sentence which say, "as they  too fight you altogether."  

Some also understood the word "people"  in verse 3, which says:

And a proclamation from Allah and His messenger to all men on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage that Allah is free from obligation to the idolaters, and (so is) His messenger. So, if ye repent, it will be better for you; but if ye are averse, then know that ye cannot escape Allah. Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to those who disbelieve," (3),............to refer to all humankind, overlooking the exceptions and the comments that follow in the same verse. 

The exceptions are: "....those of the idolaters with whom ye (Muslims) have a treaty, and who have since abated nothing of your right nor have supported anyone against you. (As for these), fulfil their treaty to them till their term. Lo! Allah loveth those who keep their duty (unto Him), "(4). 

The meaning could not be clearer or more unequivocal. The war, for which no apology should be made,  was to be prosecuted specifically against these groups who had aided the enemies of Islam or violated the rights of Muslims.

The comments that follows are even more significant. In every conflict there are innocent people who have no inclination to support either of the fighting sides. The Prophet was instructed to guarantee  such people safety and security and secure for them right of passage until they reached their safe lands. God says:

And if anyone of the idolaters seeketh thy protection (O Muhammad), then protect him so that he may hear the Word of Allah, and afterward convey him to his place of safety. That is because they are a folk who know not. (6) 

How can this be an advocacy of aggression and war-mongering? This misunderstanding seems to have arisen when some commentators and historians stretched the surah's  statements to cover Muslim conquests which took place in later years in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, and which were to allow the Muslims to sweep the whole of the Persian and a large part of the Byzantine empires. However, this is a totally unjustified interpretation, since Muslim armies did not target the capitals of those empires but moved over lands usurped by them to address those communities they have dominated by force. 

The armed conflicts that took part between these two powers or their proxies came about as a result of Muslim response to aggression and intimidation along with the desire to free those communities and release them from the grip of Byzantine and Persian political, cultural, and religious control. Only then were those communities able to learn about Islam and adopt its culture and way of life. The surah is therefore free of any charges of inciting Muslims to war, or of laying down religious or legal justifications for hostility or aggression against innocent or peaceful people. Let us look at its main themes and arguments.

The surah begins by directing the Prophet to give his enemies in Arabia, who were at war with the Muslims, a four-month grace period, a cessation of hostilities, during which they could review their attitude and plans towards Islam and the Muslims. God says to those enemies: 

" Travel freely in the land four months, and know that ye cannot escape Allah and that Allah will confound the disbelievers (in His guidance)" [2]. 

That concession was not in any way made out of weakness, and they should not, therefore, have been deceived by any strength they may have had or by any temptation to exploit the situation. The announcement was made during the pilgrimage to Makkah, in which, at that time, both Muslims and non-Muslims from all over the Arabian peninsula were able to participate. I twas therefore made publicly and to the widest possible audience in Arabia at that time.

The surah continues to elaborate on that decision, putting an end to all possible charges and accusations of aggression leveled against the Muslims, saying:

How can there be a treaty with Allah and with His messenger for the idolaters save those with whom ye made a treaty at the Inviolable Place of Worship? So long as they are true to you, be true to them. Lo! Allah loveth those who keep their duty. (7) 

The distinction is very clear. Commitments and obligations must be respected and honoured by all sides. However, the surah continues to warn:

How (can there be any treaty for the others) when, if they have the upper hand of you, they regard not pact nor honour in respect of you? They satisfy you with their mouths the while their hearts refuse. And most of them are wrongdoers. (8) They have purchased with the revelations of Allah a little gain, so they debar (men) from His way. Lo! evil is that which they are wont to do. (9) And they observe toward a believer neither pact nor honour. These are they who are transgressors. (10)





















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No aggression was committed by the Muslims, nor were they planning any aggression or breach of agreement. One detects, in fact, a certain degree fo fear and apprehension on the part of the Muslims, who felt that those acts of intimidation indicated confidence and strength in the enemy camps. God sought to allay that fear by urging the Muslims to keep up the struggle and face the enemy head-on:

"And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief - Lo! they have no binding oaths - in order that they may desist," (12) . 

Trust and honesty spring from faith and commitment to principle; the unscrupulous and devious cannot be trusted. The urging and prompting continue:

Will ye not fight a folk who broke their solemn pledges, and purposed to drive out the messenger and did attack you first? What! Fear ye them? Now Allah hath more right that ye should fear Him, if ye are believers (13)

AS we read on, it becomes clear that the group singled out for attack were neither men of peace, nor people who could be trusted. Rather, they were people with deep- seated grudges who had been agitating and instigating aggression and ferment against Islam and Muslims for a considerable time. As these are further exposed, the surah's tone becomes even more forceful:

Fight them! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them, and He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers. (14) And He will remove the anger of their hearts. Allah relenteth toward whom He will. Allah is Knower, Wise. (15)

Not a trace of warmongering or aggression against innocent or peaceable people is to be found in this passage. The fact is that to describe this surah as the turning point in Islam's attitude towards war is a gross misunderstanding. Muslims have always been and will continue to be peace-loving people, using open debate and persuasive peaceful means to introduce their religious beliefs and the principles of their way of life, and refusing to be intimidated or coerced.

Before the revelation of this surah, Arab paganism had been tolerated for twenty-two years. Even so, the non-Muslim Arabs continued to treat Islam as an outlawed religion in Makkah. They refused to recognize the new Muslim state emerging in Madinah and insisted on waging war against it, which resulted in some thirty battles and skirmishes. Arab casulaties in all those long years of confrontation did not exceed two hundred; a figure that cannot be compared with the number of Protestants slaughtered by the French Catholics in the famous 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris. Indeed, over those twenty-two years, the Muslims were guided by the Qur'anic instructions that said:

Unto this, then, summon (O Muhammad). And be thou upright as thou art commanded, and follow not their lusts, but say: I believe in whatever scripture Allah hath sent down, and I am commanded to be just among you. Allah is our Lord and your Lord. Unto us our works and unto you your works; no argument between us and you. Allah will bring us together, and unto Him is the journeying. (al-shura: 15)

Unfortunately, it all proved to be in vain. The motto of " you keep your religion and I shall keep mine," which the Muslims raised, had been rejected. The Arabs insisted on armed confrontation, and that was when the Muslims gave them four months to decide either to change their opinion and refrain from formenting trouble or leave the  region which had by then become a Muslim domain. The only other law set out by Islam at that time was that unbelievers should no longer be allowed to perform the pilgrimage to Makkah and no one should worship naked at the Ka'aba, as was the custom of pagan Arabs. All the idols around the Ka'aba were destroyed and Makkah purged of all form of idol worship once and for all. This was affirmed in the surah thus:

He only shall tend Allah's sanctuaries who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and observeth proper worship and payeth the poor-due and feareth none save Allah. For such (only) is it possible that they can be of the rightly guided. (18) 

Reflection and commentary by prof quraish shihab,
ayat 1 to ayat 10....

[  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpM5abCODS4  ]