SURA IX.1-IMMUNITY [CXIII.]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Rodwell, J. M. (John Medows)
MEDINA.-130 Verses
An IMMUNITY from God and His Apostle to those with whom ye are in league, among the Polytheist Arabs! (those who join gods with God).
Go ye, therefore, at large in the land four months: but know that God ye shall not weaken;2 and that those who believe not, God will put to shame-
And a proclamation on the part of God and His Apostle to the people on the day of the greater pilgrimage, that God is free from any engagement with the votaries of other gods with God as is His Apostle! If, therefore, ye turn to God it will be better for you; but if ye turn back, then know that ye shall not weaken God: and to those who believe not, announce thou a grievous punishment.
But this concerneth not those Polytheists with whom ye are in league, and who shall have afterwards in no way failed you, nor aided anyone against you. Observe, therefore, engagement with them through the whole time of their treaty: for God loveth those who fear Him.
And when the sacred months3 are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is Gracious, Merciful.
If any one of those who join gods with God ask an asylum of thee, grant him an asylum, that he may hear the Word of God, and then let him reach his place of safety. This, for that they are people devoid of knowledge.
How shall they who add gods to God be in league with God and with His Apostle, save those with whom ye made a league at the sacred temple? So long as they are true to you, be ye true to them; for God loveth those who fear Him.
How can they? since if they prevail against you, they will not regard in you either ties of blood or faith. With their mouths will they content you, but their hearts will be averse. The greater part of them are perverse doers.
They sell the signs of God for a mean price, and turn others aside from his way: evil is it that they do!
They regard not in a believer either ties of blood or faith; these are the transgressors!
Yet if they turn to God and observe prayer, and pay the impost, then are they your brethren in religion. We make clear our signs to those who understand.
But if, after alliance made, they break their oaths and revile your religion, then do battle with the ring-leaders of infidelity-for no oaths are binding with them that they may desist.
What! will ye not fight against those Meccans who have broken their oaths and aimed to expel your Apostle, and attacked you first? Will ye dread them? God is more worthy of your fear, if ye are believers!
So make war on them: By your hands will God chastise them, and will put them to shame, and will give you victory over them, and will heal the bosoms of a people who believe;
And will take away the wrath of their hearts. God will be turned unto whom He will: and God is Knowing, Wise.
Think ye that ye shall be forsaken as if God did not yet know those among you who do valiantly, and take none for their friends beside God, and His Apostle, and the faithful? God is well apprised of your doings.
It is not for the votaries of other gods with God, witnesses against themselves of infidelity, to visit the temples of God. These! vain their works: and in the fire shall they abide for ever!
He only should visit the temples of God who believeth in God and the last day, and observeth prayer, and payeth the legal alms, and dreadeth none but God. These haply will be among the rightly guided.
Do ye place the giving drink to the pilgrims, and the visitation of the sacred temple,4 on the same level with him who believeth in God and the last day, and fighteth on the way of God? They shall not be held equal by God: and God guideth not the unrighteous.
They who have believed, and fled their homes, and striven with their substance and with their persons on the path of God, shall be of highest grade with God: and these are they who shall be happy!
Tidings of mercy from Himself, and of His good pleasure, doth their Lord send them, and of gardens in which lasting pleasure shall be theirs;
Therein shall they abide for ever; for God! with Him is a great reward.
O Believers! make not friends of your fathers or your brethren if they love unbelief above faith: and whoso of you shall make them his friends, will be wrong doers.
SAY: If your fathers, and your sons, and your brethren, and your wives, and your kindred, and the wealth which ye have gained, and merchandise which ye fear may be unsold, and dwellings wherein ye delight, be dearer to you than God and His Apostle and efforts on his Path, then wait until God shall Himself enter on His work:5 and God guideth not the impious.
Now hath God helped you in many battlefields, and, on the day of Honein,6 when ye prided yourselves on your numbers; but it availed you nothing; and the earth, with all its breadth, became too straight for you:7 then turned ye your backs in flight:
Then did God send down His spirit of repose8 upon His Apostle, and upon the faithful, and He sent down the hosts which ye saw not, and He punished the Infidels: This, the Infidels' reward!
Yet, after this, will God be turned to whom He pleaseth; for God is Gracious, Merciful!
O Believers! only they who join gods with God are unclean! Let them not, therefore, after this their year, come near the sacred Temple. And if ye fear want,9 God, if He please, will enrich you of His abundance: for God is Knowing, Wise.
Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute out of hand,10 and they be humbled.11
The Jews say, "Ezra (Ozair) is a son of God";12 and the Christians say, "The Messiah is a son of God." Such the sayings in their mouths! They resemble the saying of the Infidels of old! God do battle with them! How are they misguided!
They take their teachers, and their monks, and the Messiah, son of Mary, for Lords13 beside God, though bidden to worship one God only. There is no God but He! Far from His glory be what they associate with Him!
Fain would they put out God's light with their mouths: but God only desireth to perfect His light, albeit the Infidels abhor it.
He it is who hath sent His Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of the truth, that He may make it victorious14 over every other religion, albeit they who assign partners to God be averse from it.
O Believers! of a truth, many of the teachers and monks do devour man's substance in vanity, and turn them from the Way of God. But to those who treasure up gold and silver and expend it not in the Way of God, announce tidings of a grievous torment.
On that day their treasures shall be heated in hell fire, and their foreheads, and their sides, and their backs, shall be branded with them. . . . "This is what ye have treasured up for yourselves: taste, therefore, your treasures!"
Twelve months is the number of months with God,15 according to God's book, since the day when He created the Heavens and the Earth: of these four are sacred: this is the right usage: But wrong not yourselves therein; attack those who join gods with God in all, as they attack you in all: and know that God is with those who fear Him.
To carry over a sacred month to another, is only a growth of infidelity. The Infidels are led into error by it. They allow it one year, and forbid it another, that they may make good the number of months which God hath hallowed, and they allow that which God hath prohibited. The evil of their deeds hath been prepared for them by Satan: for God guideth not the people who do not believe.
O Believers! what possessed you, that when it was said to you, "March forth on the Way of God," ye sank heavily earthwards? What! prefer ye the life of this world to the next? But the fruition of this mundane life, in respect of that which is to come, is but little.16
Unless ye march forth, with a grievous chastisement will He chastise you; and He will place another people in your stead, and ye shall in no way harm Him: for over everything is God potent.