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Lit., "who were left behind": i.e., the bedouin belonging to the tribes of Ghifar, Muzaynah, Juhaynah, Ashja', Aslam and Dhayl, who, although allied with the Prophet and outwardly professing Islam, refused under various pretexts to accompany him on his march to Mecca (which resulted in the Truce of Hudaybiyyah), since they were convinced that the Meccans would give battle and destroy the unarmed Muslims (Zamakhshari). The excuses mentioned in the sequence were made after the Prophet's and his followers' successful return to Medina; hence the future tense, sayaqul.
Implying that the excuses which they would proffer would be purely hypocritical.
Lit., "has anything in his power [that could be obtained] in your behalf from God": a construction which, in order to become meaningful in translation, necessitates a paraphrase.
When the Prophet started from Madinah on the Makkah journey which ended in Hudaibiya, he asked all Muslims to join him in the pious undertaking, and he had a splendid response. But some of the desert tribes hung back and made excuses. Their faith was but lukewarm, and they did not want to share in any trouble which the Makkah might give to the unarmed Muslims on pilgrimage. Their excuse that they were engaged in looking after their flocks and herds and their families was an after-thought, and in any case made after the return of the Prophet and his party with enhanced prestige to Madinah.
They said this with their tongues, but no thought of piety was in their hearts.
Their false excuse was based on a calculation of worldly profit and loss. But what about the spiritual loss in detaching themselves from the holy Prophet or spiritual profit in joining in the splendidly loyal feelings of service and obedience which were demonstrated at Hudaibiya? And in any case they need not think that all their real and secret motives were not known to Allah.
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Implying that the real sympathies of those bedouin were with the pagan Quraysh rather than with the Muslims.
Their faith was so shaky that they thought the worst would happen, and that the Makkan Quraish would destroy the unarmed band. In their heart of hearts they would not have been sorry, because they were steeped in wickedness and rejoiced in the sufferings of others. But such persons will burn in the fire of their own disappointment.
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Implying that He may forgive even the most hardened sinners if they truly repent and mend their ways: an allusion to what the Prophet was to say according to verse {16}.
Evil must inevitably have its punishment, but there is one way of escape, viz., through repentance and the Mercy of Allah. Allah's Justice will punish, but Allah's Mercy will forgive; and the Mercy is the predominant feature in Allah's universe: "He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."
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Lit., "set forth to take booty": i.e., any expedition other than against the Quraysh of Mecca, with whom the Prophet had just concluded a truce. This is generally taken as an allusion to the forthcoming war against the Jews of Khaybar (in the year 7 H.), but the meaning may well be more general.
Evidently a reference to 8:1 - "All spoils of war belong to God and the Apostle" - which, as pointed out in note [1] on that verse, implies that no individual warrior can have any claim to the booty obtained in war. Moreover, fighting for the sake of booty contravenes the very principle of a "war in God's cause", which may be waged only in defence of faith or liberty (cf. surah {2}, note [167]), "until there is no more oppression and all worship is devoted to God alone" (see 2:193 and the corresponding note [170]). It is to these principles, too, that the Prophet's anticipated answer mentioned in the sequence, refers.
I.e., in the first verse of Al-Anfal, which was revealed in the year 2 H. (see preceding note).
Those who pledged allegiance at Ḥudaibiyah were promised by Allah that the spoils of war obtained from the Tribe of Khaibar would be exclusively theirs.
Meaning, you only say so to deprive us of our share.
Now comes out another motive behind the minds of the laggards. The journey for pilgrimage had no promise of war booty. If at any future time there should be a promise of booty they would come! But that is to reverse Allah's law and decree. Jihad is not for personal gain or booty: see S. viii. and Introduction to S. viii., paragraph 2. On the contrary Jihad is hard striving, in war and peace, in the Cause of Allah.
Not thus: i.e., not on those terms; not if your object is only to gain booty.
See viii. 1, and n. 1179.
The desert Arabs loved fighting and plunder and understood such motives for war. The higher motives seemed to be beyond them. Like ignorant men they attributed petty motives or motives of jealousy if they were kept out of the vulgar circle of fighting for plunder. But they had to be schooled, and they were schooled to higher ideas of discipline, self-sacrifice, and striving hard for a Cause.
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This is evidently a prophecy relating to the future wars against Byzantium and Persia.
Lit., "before", i.e., at the time of the expedition which resulted in the Truce of Hudaybiyyah.
This refers to Hawâzin and Thaqîf, two pagan Arab tribes.
While they are reproached for their supineness in the march which led to Hudaibiya, where there was danger but no prospect of booty, they are promised, if they learn discipline, to be allowed to follow the Banner of Islam where (as happened later in the Persian and Byzantine Wars) there was real fighting with formidable and well-organised armies.
Cf. xxvii. 33.
There may be neither fighting nor booty. But all who obey the call to Jihad with perfect discipline will get the Rewards of the Hereafter. The blind, the maimed, and the infirm will of course be exempted from active compliance with the Call, but they can render such services as are within their power, and then they will not he excluded from the reward.
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These three categories circumscribe metonymically all kinds of infirmities or disabilities which may prevent a person from actively participating in a war in God's cause.
This latter applies, by obvious implication, to such as are unable to participate in the fighting physically, but are in their hearts with those who fight.
There may be neither fighting nor booty. But all who obey the call to Jihad with perfect discipline will get the Rewards of the Hereafter. The blind, the maimed, and the infirm will of course be exempted from active compliance with the Call, but they can render such services as are within their power, and then they will not he excluded from the reward.
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I.e., at Hudaybiyyah (see introductory note).
Most of the commentators assume that this relates to the conquest of Khaybar, which took place a few months after the Truce of Hudaybiyyah. It is probable, however, that the implication is much wider than that - namely, a prophecy of the almost bloodless conquest of Mecca in the year 8 H., the victorious establishment of Islam in all of Arabia and, finally, the tremendous expansion of the Islamic Commonwealth under the Prophet's immediate successors.
The conquest of Khaibar in 7 A.H./628 C.E.
The noun from the verb radhiya is Ridhwan (Good Pleasure); hence the name of this Bai'at, Bai'at ur Ridhwan, the Fealty of Allah's Good Pleasure: see n. 4877 to xlviii. 10.
The great ceremony of the Fealty of Allah's Good Pleasure took place while the holy Prophet sat under a tree in the plain of Hudaibiya.
Or tested: see n. 4855 to xlvii. 31.
Sakina=Peace, calm, sense of security and confidence, tranquillity. Cf. above xlviii. 4, and n. 4869. The same word is used in connection with the battle of Hunain in ix. 26, and in connection with the Cave of Thaur at an early stage in the Hijrat: ix. 40.
The Treaty of Hudaibiya itself was a "speedy Victory": it followed immediately after the Bai'at.
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Sc., "of what is to come to you in the hereafter".
Thus Razi.
Or the spoils of Khaibar.
The gains so far seen from the Bai'at and their calm and disciplined behaviour were certainly great: in the rapid spread of Islam, in the clearance from the Sacred House of the idolatrous autocracy, and in the universal acceptance of the Message of Allah in Arabia.
The first fruits of the Bai'at were the victory or treaty of Hudaibiya, the cessation for the time being of the hostility of the Makkan Quraish, and the opening out of the way to Makkah. These things are implied in the phrase, "He has restrained the hands of men from you."
Hudaibiya (in both the Bai'at and the Treaty) was truly a sign-post for the Believers: it showed the solidarity of Islam, and the position which the Muslims had won in the Arab world.
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I.e., the achievement of final bliss in the life to come.
Other gains: these are usually referred to the later victories of Islam, but we must view them not merely in their political or material aspect, but chiefly in the rise of Islam as a world power morally and spiritually.
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This divine promise was fulfilled in the unbroken sequence of Muslim victories after the Truce of Hudaybiyyah, ultimately leading to the establishment of an empire which extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the confines of China. - For the conditional nature of the above promise, see note [82] on 3:111 .
lit., turn their backs.
Their morale was now truly broken.
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This reference to "God's way" (sunnat Allah) is twofold: on the one hand, "you are bound to rise high if you are [truly] believers" ( 3:139 ), and, on the other, "God does not change men's condition unless they change their inner selves" ( 13:11 ), in both the positive and negative connotations of the concept of "change".
Cf. xxxiii. 62.
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Shortly before the Truce of Hudaybiyyah was concluded, a detachment of Quraysh warriors - variously estimated at between thirty and eighty men - attacked the Prophet's camp, but his practically unarmed followers overcame them and took them prisoner; after the signing of the treaty the Prophet released them unharmed (Muslim, Nasa'i, Tabari).
A group of Meccans wanted to attack the Muslims on their way to Mecca, but were taken captive by the Muslims, then were released.
Little incidents had taken place that might have plunged the Quraish and the Muslims from Madinah into a fight. On the one hand, the Quraish were determined to keep out the Muslims, which they had no right to do: and on the other hand, the Muslims, though unarmed, had sworn to stand together, and if they had counter-attacked they could have forced their entrance to the Ka'ba, the centre of Makkah. But Allah restrained both sides from anything that would have violated the Peace of the Sanctuary, and after the Treaty was signed, all danger was past.
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This interpolation is based on Razi's explanation of the connection between this and the preceding verse.
I.e., the Ka'bah, which, until the year 7 H., the Muslims were not allowed to approach.
See surah {2}, note [175].
I.e., killed. After the Prophet's and his followers' exodus to Medina, a number of Meccans both men and women - had embraced Islam, but had been prevented by the pagan Quraysh from emigrating (Tabari, Zamakhshari). Their identities were not generally known to the Muslims of Medina.
Thus Zamakhshari, supported by Razi, Ibn Kathir, and other commentators.
I.e., so that the believers might be spared, and that in time many a pagan Meccan might embrace Islam, as actually happened.
Lit., "had they been separated from one another": i.e., the believers and the pagans among the Meccans. In its wider sense, the above implies that man never really knows whether another human being deserves God's grace or condemnation.
The animals that Muslims had brought along to be sacrificed after completing the rituals of the minor pilgrimage (’umrah).
By doing so, the Meccan Muslims who were unknown to their fellow believers were safe, along with the pagans who later accepted Islam.
The Muslims from Madinah had brought the animals for sacrifice with them, and had put on the Ihram or pilgrim's garb (see n. 217 to ii. 197), but they were not only prevented from entering Makkah, but were also prevented from sending the sacrificial animals to the place of sacrifice in Makkah, as they could have done under ii. 196. The sacrifice was therefore actually offered at Hudaibiya.
There were at the time in Makkah believing Muslims, men and women, and the faith of some of them was unknown to their brethren from Madinah. Had a fight taken place in Makkah, even though the Muslims had been successful, they would unwittingly have killed some of these unknown Muslims, and thus would unwittingly have been guilty of shedding Muslim blood. This was prevented by the Treaty.
Allah works according to His wise and holy Will and Plan, and not according to what seems to us, in the excitement of human life, to be the obvious course of things. By preventing a fight He saved many valuable lives, not only of Muslims but also of some who became Muslims afterwards and served Islam. He grants His Mercy on far higher standards than man in his limited horizon can see.
If the party from Madinah could have distinguished Muslims from non-Muslims among the Makkans, they might have been allowed to enter and punish the pagan Quraish for their inordinate vanity and gross breach of the unwritten law of the land. But in the actual circumstances the best solution was the Treaty of Hudaibiya.
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