Rules on Treating Disbelievers

⁸⁸ You are divided into 2 factions regarding the hypocrites.

• ⁸⁹ They would love to see you disbelieve, just as they disbelieve, so you would become equal.
• So do not befriend any of them, unless they emigrate in the way of Allah.
• If they turn away, seize them and execute them wherever you may find them.
• Do not take from among them allies or supporters.

⁹⁰ Except those who join people with whom you have a treaty, or those who come to you reluctant to fight you or fight their own people. Had Allah willed, He would have given them power over you, and they would have fought you.

If they withdraw from you, and do not fight you, and offer you peace, then Allah assigns no excuse for you against them.

⁹¹ You will find others who want security from you, and security from their own people. But whenever they are tempted into civil discord, they plunge into it.

So seize them and execute them wherever you find them if they do not:

• withdraw from you
• offer you peace, nor
• restrain their hands.

Against these, We have given you clear authorization.

⁹² Never should a believer kill another believer, unless by error.

• Anyone who kills a believer by error must:
  • set free a believing slave, and
  • pay compensation to the victim’s family, unless they remit it as charity.

If the victim belonged to a people who are hostile to you, but is a believer, then the compensation is to free a believing slave.

If he belonged to a people with whom you have a treaty, then:

• compensation should be handed over to his family, and
• a believing slave set free.

Anyone who lacks the means must fast for 2 consecutive months as repentance to Allah.

⁹³ Whoever kills a believer deliberately, the penalty is Hell forever.

⁹⁴ When you journey in the way of Allah, investigate.

• Do not say to him who offers you peace, “You are not a believer,” aspiring for the goods of this world.
• You yourselves were like this before, and Allah bestowed favor on you.
• So investigate.

⁹⁵ Not equal are the inactive among the believers—except the disabled—and the strivers in the cause of Allah with their possessions and their persons.

• Allah prefers the strivers with their possessions and their persons above the inactive, by a degree.
• But Allah has promised goodness to both.
• ⁹⁶ Yet Allah favors the strivers, over the inactive, with a great reward, degrees, forgiveness, and mercy.

⁹⁷ While the angels are removing the souls of those who have wronged themselves, they will say:

^98-99 Allah may well pardon the weak men, women, and children who have no means:

• to act
• to find a way out.

¹⁰⁰ Anyone who emigrates for the sake of Allah will find many places of refuge, and plentitude.

Anyone who leaves his home, emigrating to Allah and His Messenger, and then is overtaken by death, his compensation falls on Allah.

¹⁰¹ When you travel in the land, you can shorten the prayers if you fear that the disbelievers may harm you.

• Those disbelievers are your manifest enemies.

¹⁰² When you are among them, and you stand to lead them in prayer, let a group of them stand with you, and let them hold their weapons.

Then, when they have done their prostrations, let them withdraw to the rear, and let another group, that have not prayed yet, come forward and pray with you;

Let them take their precautions and their weapons.

Those who disbelieve would like you to neglect your weapons and your equipment, so they can attack you in a single assault.

You commit no error, if you are hampered by rain or are sick, by putting down your weapons; but take precautions. Indeed, Allah has prepared for the disbelievers a demeaning punishment.

¹⁰³ When you have completed the prayer, remember Allah, standing, or sitting, or on your sides. And when you feel secure, perform the prayer. The prayer is obligatory for believers at specific times.

¹⁰⁴ Do not falter in the pursuit of the enemy.

If you are aching, they are aching as you are aching, but you expect from Allah what they cannot expect.

¹⁰⁵ We have revealed to you the Scripture, with the truth, so that you judge between people in accordance with what Allah has shown you.

• Do not be an advocate for the traitors.
• ¹⁰⁶ Ask Allah for forgiveness.
• ¹⁰⁷ Do not argue on behalf of those who deceive themselves.

Allah does not love the deceitful sinner.

• ¹⁰⁸ They hide from the people, but they cannot hide from Allah.
• He is with them, as they plot by night with words He does not approve.

¹⁰⁹ There you are, arguing on their behalf in the present life, but who will argue with Allah on their behalf on the Day of Resurrection?

Or who will be their representative?

¹¹⁰ Whoever commits evil, or wrongs his soul, then implores Allah for forgiveness, will find Allah Forgiving and Merciful.

¹¹¹ Whoever earns a sin, earns it against himself.

¹¹² Whoever commits a mistake, or a sin, and then blames it on an innocent person, has taken a slander and a clear sin.

¹¹³ Were it not for Allah’s grace towards you, and His mercy, a faction of them would have managed to mislead you. But they only mislead themselves, and they cannot harm you in any way.

¹¹⁴ There is no good in much of their private counsels, except for him who advocates charity, or kindness, or reconciliation between people. Whoever does that, seeking Allah’s approval, We will give him a great compensation.

¹¹⁵ Whoever makes a breach with the Messenger, after the guidance has become clear to him, and follows other than the path of the believers, We will direct him in the direction he has chosen, and commit him to Hell what a terrible destination!

¹¹⁶ Allah will not forgive that partners be associated with Him; but will forgive anything less than that, to whomever He wills. Anyone who ascribes partners to Allah has strayed into far error.

¹¹⁷ They invoke in His stead only females. In fact, they invoke none but a rebellious devil.

¹¹⁸ Allah has cursed him. And he said, “I will take to myself my due share of Your servants.”

¹¹⁹ “And I will mislead them, and I will entice them, and I will prompt them to slit the ears of cattle, and I will prompt them to alter the creation of Allah.” Whoever takes Satan as a lord, instead of Allah, has surely suffered a profound loss.

¹²⁰ He promises them, and he raises their expectations, but Satan promises them nothing but delusions.

¹²¹ These—their place is Hell, and they will find no escape from it.

¹²² But as for those who believe and do righteous deeds, We will admit them into gardens beneath which rivers flow, where they will abide forever.

It is not in accordance with your wishes, nor in accordance with the wishes of the People of the Scripture. Whoever works evil will pay for it, and will not find for himself, besides Allah, any protector or savior.

¹²⁴ But whoever works righteousness and is a believer will enter Paradise.

¹²⁵ The best in religion is he who:

• submits himself wholly to Allah
• is a doer of good
• follows the Monotheist faith of Abraham

Allah has chosen Abraham for a friend.

¹²⁷ When they ask you for a ruling about women, say: “Allah gives you a ruling about widowed women from whom you withhold what is decreed for them. Yet you want to marry them, and about helpless children: that you should treat the orphans fairly.”

¹²⁸ If a woman fears maltreatment or desertion from her husband, there is no fault in them if they reconcile their differences, for reconciliation is best. Souls are prone to avarice; yet if you do what is good, and practice piety.

¹²⁹ You will not be able to treat women with equal fairness, no matter how much you desire it. But do not be so biased as to leave another suspended. If you make amends, and act righteously.

¹³⁰ If they separate, Allah will enrich each from His abundance.

¹³¹ They say, “Did we not side with you, and defend you from the believers?” Allah will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection; and Allah will give the disbelievers no means of overcoming the believers.