1. Mutual covenants with others should be honored, provided other parties remain faithful to such covenants and treaties (9:1–16).
2. Fighting for truth and justice is far superior to religious rituals and services (9:19–24).
3. Access to Kabah is restricted for people without faith (9:28).
4. Active opposition against those who lack and prevent faith and goodness (9:29, 73).
5. Abuse by clerics exposed (priests, rabbis, and imams) (9:31-34).
6. Four months out of twelve are made sacred (9:36–37).
7. Failure to fight lies and injustice only increases such lies and injustice (9:38–42).
8. Prophet’s leniency toward hypocrites questioned (9:43–54).
9. Not to be enamored by wealth and abundance of those who lack faith and goodness (9:55, 85).
10. Purpose of Zakat (Charity) explained (9:60).
11. Hypocrites are exposed and contrasted against the faithful (9:64–72, 74–80, 86–88, 126–127).
12. Desert tribes are characterized as full of disbelief and hypocrisy (9:97–99).
13. God acknowledges first-generation emigrants (muhajirin) and helpers (ansar) for their strong faith and exceptional good works (9:100–104, 117).
14. A house of worship can be a source of evil (9:107–110).
15. All revelations confirm God’s promise to reward faith and goodness (9:111–112).
16. Polytheism is inexcusable after belief in One God (9:113–115).
17. Education is to be pursued, even in the face of conflicts and persecution (9:122).
18. The Prophet’s disposition and role explained (9:128–129).
1. Mutual covenants with others should be honored, provided other parties remain faithful to such covenants and treaties (9:1–16).
Honoring any forms of covenant, treaties, and promises with fellow human beings, whether individually or as communities and nations, is made part and parcel of faith and goodness. Every prophet of God makes reference to the covenant that Adam and Eve made with God and that God in turn asks of every human child, “Am I not your Sustainer and Cherisher God?” Such a covenant binds us with God and His fellow creations, whether humans or other beings and entities in the natural world on this planet and in the universe. In the same vein, when we as individuals and as communities make accords, agreements, promises, or treaties among ourselves, those need to honored and adhered to as a matter of principle and as part of a faithful commitment to one another, in no less important terms than our covenant to God Himself. There is reciprocity in the way we treat others and the way we want God to treat us and others to treat us. One of the Ten Commandments given to Moses (see Volume 2)—“Love your neighbors as you love yourself”—is this essential reciprocity built into our nature and reminded by God in every revelations, including the Qur’an.
Character building in the Qur’an started out by informing prophets (starting with Adam and Eve) about God’s commitment to human beings and the intuitive nature of this mutual commitment as built into our nature and our DNA, both spiritually and physically (“the nature of God in which the nature of human beings has been created”). Our body follows the physical commitment from conception till death as ordained, empowered, and programmed by God without exception unless interfered with by evil thoughts, harmful ingestions, and degradations of our environment in both spiritual and physical aspects. Being truthful to and vigilant about the terms of promises and treaties is as fundamental as our faith and definition of goodness in human beings and in human societies. “God loves those who keep their promises”; “God is with those who are truthful”; “God does not love those who are aggressors, arrogant, and cause mischiefs”; “God is with those who are patient”—all such phrases, found abundantly throughout the Qur’an, are constant reminders that our commitments to fellow human beings are as important as our commitment to God and are essential for the well-being of our societies and our existence on this planet, as well as our standing with God, our Creator.
The few verses here provide the framework under which one can renege such covenants and treaties with others since others may fail to honor such commitments, while covenants with God should always be honored since God never fails in His commitment to His creation.
· While people of faith and goodness should never renege on a covenant or treaty first, they are given permission to renege if the other party does so first and continues to persist on such breaches, which establishes clear intent and defiance without justifiable causes.
· Even with this permission, such cancellation of mutual obligations should be declared openly, in a transparent manner, given the gravity of such cancellations, and a timetable established so that the other party can reflect and take corrective actions if they are so inclined.
· Such cancellations and adverse actions should not be taken against other parties who are not part of the original treaty and who have not aided the breaching party with their defiance of the treaty terms.
· Even if after such cancellations, the other party shows genuine remorse and wishes to come back to peace and good terms, it is imperative to accept such gestures in good terms so that both parties are free to pursue their goals and ways of life without any undue coercions and physical constraints or harms.
· In a similar vein, if the other party breaches due to lack of knowledge and proper understanding of the terms and without bad intent or seeks to clarify, an olive branch should be extended, and their overture respected without undue suspicion and as an opportunity to have further dialogue and impress upon the nature of human goodness.
The context of this guidance is also important to understand and be able to extend to our lives and situations today. The pursuit of the Prophet and his followers to establish a faith community, to live in peace, and to put into practice a system of governance around truth and justice for all has been constantly opposed by the polytheists of Makkah and their allies in Madinah and other parts of Arabia as well as other faith communities, especially those who claimed to follow the teachings of Moses and Jesus. The prophet and his people were persecuted, driven away from their homes and loved ones, and their lives threatened in every conceivable way in Makkah. In Madinah, his community’s effort to live in harmony, build peace with warring tribes, and establish guiding principles for peaceful coexistence was challenged as well through well-orchestrated and organized armed conflict to inflect maximum physical harm and to eliminate their presence in Arabia, if not in the world.
These adversaries would only acquiesce if they failed to succeed in their armed aggression, and as soon as situation would turn, they would resume their hostilities. The prophet was under constant siege and his followers constantly humiliated and constrained from their free exercise of their own beliefs, practices, and establishment of social orders that is based on universal understanding of truth and justice and based on mutual dialogues. Our world today is full of such contradictions, where we are failing to keep commitments to each other, within leadership and citizens, among nation-states, within the same faith community, and across various ethnic and religious divides, economic divides, and political divides. Fragmentation of ideas, sectarian and religious divides, economic greed, exploitation of human beings, political loyalty over facts and human justice, manufacture and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among all nations, wanton disregard for the environment, and reckless endangerment of our cohabitators on this beautiful planet have reached alarming proportion. All of this emanates from our disregard of the covenant with God and our mutual commitment to fellow human beings, sometimes under false pretenses, sometimes from lack of knowledge and genuine appreciation of our role as human beings, and sometimes under deliberate evil intent and disregard for our common humanity.
2. Fighting for truth and justice is far superior to religious rituals and services (9:19–24).
The purposes of religious rituals and services include demonstration of faith, developing deeper connections with God, establishing the presence of God’s awareness and mindfulness in each one of us as well as a community, and very importantly, building a sense of community to create social norms and practices that we can easily connect to and discern. Every faith community has come up with its own rituals and services, but the underlying theme and pursuit is to bring godliness in each one of us and to develop communal living, norms, and standards. It is this underlying unity of the godhead and an allegiance to our common humanity that was the basis for the declaration in the Qur’an that if God wanted, He could have made us (all of humanity) into one community, but since we differed, God allowed different rituals and practices to emerge and become acclaimed to. But as long as we vie with each other for goodness and remain true to faith in One God, it is acceptable to God. There is no other statement in any book of revelations that comes close to this statement in term of religious plurality and religious freedom of expression.
Having established the acceptance of various religious rituals, services, and related activities, the Qur’an also cautions that those who confine themselves to such rituals and services and consider them God’s favored or see themselves as better than others while neglecting larger societal issues of establishing and sustaining truth and justice, ensuring human dignity and freedom, maintaining the pristine condition of the natural world, fighting against any forms of oppression and injustice, putting into laws and policies, and ensuring equal access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of purposefulness in life and in our existence as human beings will find themselves on shaky ground in the eyes of God and in the eyes of human beings who are tuned to the higher purpose in life.
The verses under discussion here mention religious services like giving water to the pilgrims or taking care of a place of worship as example of what people might consider a superior form of devotion to God than fighting for truth and against corruption and injustice. The Qur’an is categorical that such religious services are far inferior in the eye of God. Our current world is full of such dichotomies. The sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, where the priests and their allies consider their services in the church, will override the corruption and injustice they impose on an innocent parishioner. In many mosques and religious organizations financial irregularities are rampant, women are denied their rights to worship, and hatred against non-Muslims is preached, while the leadership is oblivious to the widespread corruption in the society, but they consider dressing up as a Arab, having a beard or wearing a hijab, or serving a meal to themselves superior forms of worship and expressions of faith. In recent times, some Buddhist monks and religious leaders in Sri Lanka and Myanmar have been spewing hatred and atrocities against innocent Muslims while using their rituals in temples as superior acts of religiosity and considering themselves better human beings.
3. Access to Kabah restricted for people without faith (9:28).
Kabah, the center of monotheism and a place of worship erected by Abraham, the father of monotheism, and his son Ishmael, serves as the direction to which all Muslims turn in their daily worship, no matter where one is in the world. And millions of faithful journey each year to visit Kabah, worship in its precinct, and perform other forms of rituals prescribed for the annual pilgrimage. Worship and physical presence in the Kabah not only require physical purity (performed through ablution), but also spiritual purity in the form of the belief in One God and the affirmation of human goodness. Prior to taking control of the Kabah by the Prophet and his followers in year 628, it became a center of idol worship, place of superstitious religious practices, and source of contention among Arab tribes to lead religious practices and control the profit of trade that came from Kabah being the place of such importance among all religious and faith communities of the contemporary Arab world.
The Prophet and his followers, once the conquest of Makkah was complete, cleaned up its premise of all idols and banned all practices of polytheism and superstitions. It was declared, as evident from the particular verse, that people without faith or polytheistic beliefs were no longer allowed to come into the precinct of Makkah and Kabah as a violation of its purity and sacredness. No other place in the world and no place of devotion and worship exist that rival the devotion that Kabah engenders, the specific rituals dedicated to its visitation, and the number of people, irrespective of color, creed, gender, and ethnicity who visit Kabah each year.
An extension of this prohibition had led many Muslims, especially conservative imams, to restrict non-Muslims to visit any mosque, which I believe is an aberration of the faith of Islam and needs to be strongly condemned. In the same vein, in many Muslim countries, women are not allowed to worship in the mosque, a practice that has no justification based on the teachings of the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophet. In a similar vein, in many of the mosques in the West, women are forced to cover their heads before they can enter the mosque—again, a practice that has no basis in the Qur’an or the Prophet’s tradition. Such corruptions in religious practices and prohibition for access to places of worship are affronts to human dignity, and equal treatment under the eye of God in Whose name such false practices are justified and enforced.
4. Active opposition against those who lack and prevent faith and goodness (9:29, 73).
This verse lays out the need for active opposition, even in the form of fighting (if the other party initiates an aggressive physical stance and fights in the first place) against those who meet a set of criteria related to a lack of belief as well as a social stance lacking goodness. This social and political activism is fundamental to ensuring freedom of choice and a general affinity for goodness, which are inherently important for human development and progress, both physical as well as spiritual.
Defensive fighting (if attacked or persecuted) is allowed and even strongly encouraged against those who deny truth and justice, as manifested by their denial of belief in God, not accepting the reality of the Day of Judgment (through resurrection after death), wholesale refusal to abandon all evils as forbidden and discouraged by God and His prophets, and not accepting wholeheartedly the fundamentals of truth and justice in society (true guidance), even those who have been given and received the guidance before. While Jews and Christians are considered to be the primary recipients of such guidance by classical commentators, we ought to include all communities around the world since guidance has been given and extended to all of humanity one way or another, and in our contemporary society, information is readily available if one chooses to pursue and seek guidance. Verse 73 also makes it clear that hypocritical Muslims and those who clearly lack faith and goodness by their own admissions should also be fought against if they show aggression first.
While physical fights have been the primary mode of countering evils, as evil forces were always inclined to fight and coerce people physically, a trend that even continuous to this day unfortunately, the greater battle that is launched in our world today is that abuse of knowledge and economy hegemony, both of which are constantly at war with goodness in the form of disinformation, lies, and clever but mischievous arguments against faith in God and human goodness while using wealth and economic power to disenfranchise average citizens, communities, and nation states. While such evils are very much evident in Communist countries, many countries who have claims to faith and goodness are ruled by autocratic rulers, widely attributable to many Muslim countries in the Middle East and major parts of Africa’s and India’s subcontinental nations and are further complicated by the rise of political rights and religious and racial extremists, even in the West, creating a situation that puts major segments of humanity at risk. This is further complicated by wanton disregard and disrespect for the natural environment that sustains our lives and our livelihoods, a situation that we all need to take blame for without too much finger pointing. That does not help in solving the problem that we all face.
The enormity of the challenge calls for a different kind of fight—a fight for good information, a fight for good governance, and a fight for restoring dignity, not only to our human family but also to all of the natural world that we are embedded in. Such a fight has to be anchored in our fundamental belief and reality that we are not the owners of this planet that we live on but have been gifted by a God, Who also empowered us and put resources at our disposal to meet our needs in a pure and holistic way. This fundamental faith in God can only be demonstrated if we are driven by a second faith, and that is faith in our common humanity and our shared destiny. We are truly successful if we all are successful and if we take personal responsibility to uplift one another in a world that is not made as a zero-sum game but has unprecedented potential to dignify each and every human being, if we only so believe and act with goodness.
5. Abuse by clerics exposed (priests, rabbis, and imams) (9:31–34).
The Qur’an declares Islam (peace and submission to God) as the religion of truth and as the universal guidance from God that is manifested to all generations through prophets, messengers, and people of goodwill who propagated God’s message based on their own intellect, spirituality, and deep devotion to God and deeper understanding of human condition and destiny. Some of these great leaders of humanity were gifted with revelations from God in the form of scriptures, the most recent ones being the Qur’an, the Bible, and Torah, among revelations that exist to this day.
While prophets—whose teachings, guidance, and revelations major religions of today are established and who were true civic leaders who fought for truth and justice—called for human goodness and shared human destiny back to God, their followers created so-called religions (as opposed to a common human aspiration for aligning with God and our common human goodness) and established religious institutions and clerical leaders who narrowly define religion in terms of a rigid faith based on misguided theology and rituals that are based more on formalities than substance and purposefulness.
The most current example is the papal institution that took control of the teachings of Jesus and turned true monotheism taught by Jesus into a self-conflicted concept of a trinity, coerced Christians to abandon faith in One God into multiple godheads, often by inflicting horrendous physical punishment, such as burning to death, crucifixion, threatening with excommunication, and bringing the full force of the Roman emperor at the time. Instead of reading the Bible, the revelations that Jesus brought to the world, Catholics are forced to read catechism, a book created by the papal institution, claimed to be based on four versions of the Bible. It has been retained and modified to fit the theology of trinity and religious ritual that fits more Roman worship of their gods than the worship of true One God. The Anglican Christian Church even declared the king of England as the head of the church, a phenomenon Jesus never talked about, let alone would even permit. The pope and clerics even assume divine sanction to distribute God’s favor as they will and sought imperial glory, and the pope declared himself holy, an attribute that only belongs to God. Too many popes, history will attest, were less than holy and have had glaring faults unworthy of a holy man, let alone being holy like God. Verse 34 draws attention to such material pursuits of the clerics.
When verse 31 was revelated, a companion of the Prophet, a former Christian, Adi Ibn Hatim, came to the Prophet and humbly stated, as he understood, that Christians never worshipped their clerics or pope or Jesus as God. In clarifying the verse, what the Prophet said is profoundly important to understand how clerics should be viewed, and their role, if it at all needs to exist, should be redefined. The Prophet said: “Did they forbid what God permitted, which you then consider to be forbidden, and did they not permit what God forbade, which you then consider permitted?” Once Adi admitted that such situations did occur and were put in practice, the Prophet said: “This (such devotion) is the worship offered to them.”
When many Muslims read the Qur’an, they always assume that whenever a critical assessment is made of Christian or Jewish (or, for that matter, any previous religious) practices, it is about them and not about the Muslims. Yet there is no reason to believe that Muslims did not fall into similar traps. In relation to the current verses, many Muslim clerics behave no differently than what the Qur’an declares to be abhorrent and tantamount to worshipping such imams. Leaders of ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Taliban sanctioned and committed untold atrocities and indignities against women in the name of Islam. They ravaged human beings, Muslims and non-Muslims, in the name of Islam. The Catholic Church proclaims celibacy for the clerics, a requirement purportedly based on the teachings of Jesus (without any basis) and turns a blind eye to serious sexual abuse committed by such clerics against their innocent parishioners, especially women and children. The wholescale ethnic cleansing of Muslim minorities in Myanmar in 2019, as I write this volume, was encouraged and participated in by Buddhist monks in collaboration with the military. The irony of the elected leader of Myanmar, Ann San Suu Kyi’s, silence and refusal to accept responsibility for the carnage and Pope Francis’s lack of mention of such atrocities during his visit to Myanmar just shows how leaders, whether secular or religious, are failing our humanity across the globe.
While calling out so-called religious clerics and secular leaders, it would also be instructive to recall the egregious atrocities committed by atheist governments in Communist countries that empower their political apparatus and operatives (clerics of Communism, if such a name can be used) to kill, maim, and make prisoners in concentration camps of citizens who wish to maintain their faith and religion and disagree with rule of coercion and lack of human freedom.
6. Four months out of twelve are made sacred (9:36–37).
It is not known if, outside the Arab world, the four months out of the twelve-month lunar cycle are considered sacred so that no hostilities (especially armed conflicts) can be started or continued during those four months. The months are the eleventh (Dhul Qadah), twelfth (Dhul Hijjah), first (Muharram), and seventh (Rajab) months, when any hostility is forbidden, and both Muslims and Arabs during the Prophet’s lifetime would honor such prohibitions. Verses 2:217 and 2:189 make it clear that the performance of the Hajj should be according to the lunar calendar, which should not be tempered with any form of intercalation that Arabs used to do on an eight-year cycle, where they will add an extra month onto the third, sixth, and eighth years to make the Hajj season fall on fixed time based on the solar calendar. Such intercalation may be OK from business, harvest, and other perspectives, but from the perspectives of the Hajj and the sacredness of the month, the instruction is very clear that the lunar month should be used for such purposes. Muslims have by and large maintained this injunction, whereas Christian and Jewish practices have been altered to follow the solar calendar.
Verse 2:217 makes an exception that while Muslims should follow the prohibition during the sacred months and not initiate any armed conflict unless they are attacked and forced to defend themselves, then they are allowed to do so during these sacred months and would not be consider having violated the prohibition. Any form of tempering with the lunar months regarding the Hajj or their sacredness is considered a sign of disbelief. The arrangement of twelve lunar months, of which four months are sacred, has been declared a design of God as part of the creation of the heaven and the earth with its singular moon.
Given such an arrangement, it might be worthwhile for the world to consider whether such a practice should be initiated worldwide, wherein those four months will be declared sacred months, when all hostilities should be halted and none should be resumed. Such a practice might prove to be very beneficial, given the intensity and proliferation of armed conflicts around the world. Perhaps such an understanding will give each warring party and participant in conflict to take a pause, reflect on the higher purposes in life, and negotiate for peace. This would also give innocent civilians time to regain some semblance of normal life and be better prepared to face, should the conflicts get renewed.
7. Failure to fight lies and injustice only increases such lies and injustice (9:38–42).
These verses provide a foundational understanding of human society where establishing and sustaining truth and justice calls for constant vigilance and sometime sacrifices of our resources and our lives. Such sacrifices and exertions ensure freedom and human dignity, not only in our collective existence in this world but also in making ways for God’s reward in the afterlife.
There are two different aspects to this struggle:
· The first is to establish truth and justice in the society when there is anarchy and injustice. The Prophet’s effort to create peaceful coexistence and a framework of governance of society in Madinah immediately after his immigration there and his subsequent ten years of constant struggle and even fighting battles is one such example. The American Revolution against the anarchy and hegemony of the English king and British colonialism and the battles fought by the Founding Fathers are other examples of our contemporary world. Such battles and struggles are constantly being fought by human societies such as in South Africa against apartheid, in the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa against autocratic rulers, and in Hong Kong against China’s central party rules, as being witnessed as I am writing this commentary.
· Second, once such truth and justice is established, like wind on a sailing ship, there are always going to be counterwinds, gusts that tend to rock the boat or change its course, decay in the boat from seawater and human mismanagement, and general negligence that take away the vigilance and commitment to maintain course and do needed repair. Such conditions exist in all societies and are part of our human dynamics, so that whenever we lose sight of faith and human goodness, we are bound to destabilize our society and our governance, similar to what we are currently witnessing in the world, particularly led by the US election results of 2016, the rise of far rights in many European countries, and the strengthening of autocratic rules and political corruption in various countries all over the globe. It is spreading like forest fire, fueled by the erosion of democratic values, party politics, ethnic and religious hatred, financial greed and corruption, and false ideologies that are fighting against faith and human goodness.
Verse 38 starts with the reminder and urging that when confronted with rising tide of anarchy and mischief and when truth and justice in society is threatened, we have no choice but to rise to the occasion. This is a command from God and a call for the sake of restoring and preserving human dignity and human freedom. God questions why we lack courage and drive to fight such fights—is it because we love our lives on this planet and forget that by restoring freedom and dignity, not only do we dignify this life but also earn the rights and dignity in the life to come? And in case we are not thinking straight, God reminds us that the life to come is better and more lasting that the life we lead today, and for the love of which we are willing to suffer indignity and coercion without a fight or struggle. For not facing up to the challenge, there are consequences—consequences of injustice and lies, which are forms of collective punishment, whether we interpret it as God’s chastisement or the natural consequence of evil forces, which get free reign when good people do not resist such evils.
Besides urging people of faith and goodness to restore justice and truth, God gives encouragement by noting that He is always with those who strives of truth and justice in the face of enormous odds. He was with the Prophet and his companion when they were hiding in the cave from their enemies, and He was with them in various battles where they contemplated being totally annihilated by their enemies. God is committed to be with the righteous if we commit to the same. Such commitment requires dedication of resources and persons, and if we do so, it is better for us in the longer term, though we might suffer in the short term. God challenges our human folly so that when we see immediate gain and an easier effort, we tend to participate, but when the road is long and fraught with difficulty, we try to find excuses not to participate. Such condition is tantamount to destroying our souls, which thrive on the pursuit of truth and justice and die when we subject ourselves to injustice and lies.
8. Prophet’s leniency toward hypocrites questioned (9:43–54).
The Qur’an is a guide for the faithful and for humanity at large. The Qur’an was also an active guide for the Prophet himself. Unlike previous revelations, the Qur’an sometimes questioned certain acts or postures of the Prophet to emphasize the constant sense of justice and truth that God expects from prophets, albeit with God’s active guidance in their pursuit of such truth and justice. This also draws attention to the human nature of prophets, who are fellow human beings, elevated by God to perform a mission of guiding humanity through the trials of life and their human nature also implies that they do not have same information or foresight that God reserves for Himself.
In this particular instance, the Prophet and his followers were preparing for a long and hard journey during the hot summer months in the desert of Arabia and against a force that was one of the two most powerful empires at the time (the Byzantine and the Persian). While the Prophet was able to master a thirty-thousand voluntary force for this expedition of Tabuk in the last year of his life, many hypocrites came up with lame excuses to stay back, which the Qur’an exposes as lack of faith and lack of willingness to sacrifice for the sake of truth and justice. The Prophet could not have known the true motives that propelled these hypocrites to seek relief from this expedition, as God knows the true condition of human hearts. He gave permission for them to stay back without inquiring further as to their true motives and taking their excuses at face value. God, while accepting the Prophet’s act, said that he should have waited until God revealed their true motives, which are as follows:
· These people asked to be excused because they lacked faith, and they were in doubt as to their commitment to truth and justice, while a true believer will never ask to stay behind.
· If they were serious and committed, they would have gathered their resources and equipment and would have already joined without delaying and asking to be excused.
· With the Prophet granting them their excuses, God had ensured that they were not party to the expedition, because they would make trouble and cause dissension as they had done so before.
· They had acted in opposition to the Prophet and his followers before, and now they were acting in the same manner as God reveals their true nature.
· If the Prophet and his followers were to suffer losses, they would say that by their excuses, they took care of their own affairs (i.e., were saved from such losses) and were joyful, and if the Prophet and his followers won and had good future, they grieved instead of rejoicing.
God reminds such hypocrites by recounting their true nature and asking the faithful to know and say that it is God Who defines the outcome and not the evil desires and secret plans of the hypocrites. God makes a person of faith winner either way, if a sacrifice is made or a victory is achieved, while a hypocrite only fears chastisement from God or being exposed. Such exposition is then followed by God’s guidance to the Prophet not to accept any help or charity from such hypocrites even if they offer willingly after being exposed, because they are at their core unfaithful and not committed to truth and justice; they offer prayers only for show and without sincerity, and even if they offer charity, they do so only reluctantly.
Such exposition, while being directed to the so-called hypocrites, is instruction and offers a set of tangible and real-life criteria for each one of us to gauge our own activities and motivations to make sure we are sincere, spontaneous, and humble in our acts and conducts.
9. Not to be enamored by wealth and abundance of those who lack faith and goodness (9:55, 85).
The above description and predispositions of the mind of the hypocrites are then followed by this verse 55 and repeated in verse 85, to remind the faithful that they should not be fooled by the outward ease with which these people live and the enormity of their property, wealth, and family they can brag about. One should also be mindful of verses such as 8:28 and 64:15, where God mentioned that the life of this world, its possessions, and its relationships sometimes add to the trials and tribulations that many falls victim to by being unmindful of God and life’s true purpose and acting with greed and pride to secure more earthly belongings while denying truth and justice to others (63:9).
It is natural to feel drawn to family and wealth (18:46), but such possessions could lead to arrogance, and corruption (34:35–37, 68:14) will prove nothing against God’s plan to reform the world from time to time. The true measure of success is based on commitment to faith and goodness and not on material possessions (9:88). It is not coincidental that in our world today, many countries that are rich in natural resources have also succumbed to tyranny and autocratic rules despite great potential for material well-being. History also teaches us that societies that have social norms that respect human dignity and freedom and strive for truth and justice, even if there are occasional lapses of judgment, and good governance will win and be prosperous in this life, while the afterlife belongs to those who combine goodness with faith in One God.
It is also important to look at our world today in light of these verses while we have developed shallow and celebrity-centric cultures where personal beauty and charm, possessions, and extreme social media followership are considered virtues and are being worshipped by a predominant mindset of consumerism while ignoring the transient nature of our current life and our ultimate journey back to God, Who has a different set of standards by which to judge people, a standard of intentionality and purposefulness, alliance for truth and justice, mindfulness and empathy, and true aversion for evils and corruptions. The ills of our society are not that we do not have enough material comfort (though a large portion of humanity lives today in extreme poverty, while a minority of human beings had accumulated extreme wealth) but that we lack foundational understanding of who we are as human beings, our role as global citizens, and our commitment to truth and justice while developing deep devotion to God and His created world for our benefit.
10. Purpose of Zakat (Charity) explained (9:60).
Please see Volume 3, where I have explained the five pillars of faith, which include Zakat.
11. Hypocrites are exposed and contrasted against the faithful (9:64–72, 74–80, 86–88, 126–127).
I have listed some of the attributes of hypocritical believers in item 8 above, based on some of the earlier verses in this surah. As you can tell, this surah devotes a significant number of narratives on such hypocrites because of the critical period of the Prophet’s ascendency as the leader of not only the Muslims of his time or his tribes in Arabia but also the world at large. This was as if God was cautioning the believers to be mindful of their internal discord, especially what may come from the hypocrites, who on the surface act like believers and lay claim to faith but in reality they doubt their faith, are uncommitted to truth and justice, and at worst actively conspire and aid against the Prophet and his followers.
Here are some of the attributes of the hypocrites that we can glean from these verses:
a. They make fun of God and His messages, including the messengers and his followers, but when confronted, they flatly deny such behavior and say that they were just having a good time.
b. They actively conspire for and pursue evils and injustice, as opposed to aspiring and fighting for goodness, truth, and justice like generations before them who did the same.
c. All of their activity suggests that they have lost their faith after believing in the first place, which itself is a grave matter, attesting to the facts their mischief is deliberate and not out of ignorance.
d. They swear as if they said and did nothing, while their conducts display disbelief and disloyalty.
e. They forgo their promises soon after they make them to give in charity after they are enriched by God.
f. They make fun of those who give freely for the poor and those who are too poor to give any charity but contribute with their hard labor.
g. When a chapter is revealed asking people to confirm their faith and strive hard for the cause of truth and justice, they (especially those who are wealthy) ask for permission to be excused.
h. Trial comes to these people once or twice a year, but they continue to remain unmindful, and God lets them live in such hypocrisy so that words can be proven against them.
i. God will not forgive them, even if people, including the Prophet, ask for forgiveness for them.
j. Ultimate humiliation and chastisement from God are their fate in this world and in the life to come, but they are given respite by God to perpetuate their disbelief and prove their bad behaviors in the sight of God and fellow human beings.
In contrast, people of true faith are described with these key attributes:
a. They are sincere in their devotion to God, to His guidance, and to the Prophet.
b. They aspire for truth and justice, actively engage in doing good, and actively fight against evils, falsehood, and injustice.
c. They are ever generous to help those in need.
d. They strive with their property and persons, and God will make them successful.
e. God promises them paradise and God’s grace, which is even bigger than paradise itself.
The key challenge for all of us who claim to have faith and subscribing to goodness is whether we display any such traits that the hypocrites are blamed of so that we can take lessons and look critically at ourselves, our society, and our world. Unfortunately, we see that world is full of such hypocrisy in our own country, as the Trump administration and some of the evangelical Christian supporters are steeped in hypocrisy about our own society and the world order. I also see blatant hypocrisy in the killing of pro-democracy civilians in the Sudan in the public squares, the treatment of the protesters in Hong Kong when they make demands against impending extradition laws in their parliament, and the blackout of internet services by the Myanmar military to further clamp down on Muslim minorities. These challenges call not only for national reflection but also individual reflections as to the motives and priorities of our daily and collective lives, and also focus on our personal accountability and responsibility not only to ourselves but also to our Creator, Who is ever watchful and records all of our deeds and underlying intents. We cannot escape His judgment in this world and the life to come!
12. Desert tribes are characterized as full of disbelief and hypocrisy (9:97–99).
In continuing the narratives on the hypocrites, special attention is drawn to Bedouin tribes that are nomadic (as opposed to sedentary residents living around cities and oasis) for their staunch disbelief, persistent hypocrisy, and predisposition for not fully comprehending and failing to live within the boundaries of faith and goodness, as God had revealed in the Qur’an and other books of revelations. This is due to their blind loyalty to tribal leadership, customs and beliefs, and constantly shifting alliances among various tribes without regard for truth and justice, as defined by God and the guidance that came from God. They consider charity and community obligations to support efforts for truth and justice as a form of burden and wish that evils (both moral jeopardy and physical harm) came to the Prophet and his followers. Having said that, the Qur’an also acknowledges that, notwithstanding such predispositions, there are Bedouins and tribes who attained faith, committed to it, and took their spending and prayers to bring them closer to God, His guidance, and to the fellowship of the Prophet and other believers. God promises to bring them to His mercy while condemning the behavior and attitudes of the previous groups of Bedouins.
These forms of treachery and hypocrisy are being played out even to this date, as we see the autocratic and failed states in counties of the Middle East and Africa, including Muslim majority countries. While the United States should take the blame for attacking countries like Iraq without proper pretext, the continuing bloodshed among Shia and Sunni, the rise of ISIS and its atrocities, and the continued and persistent presence of corrupt governments are reflections of this dominant tribal and Bedouin culture of blind loyalty and serious harm done to people who challenge such loyalty. Such situations should give pause to Muslims in generations, and Muslims in those countries in particular, to understand the underlying causes for lack of progress and social cohesion in their countries while they read the Qur’an and its message of unity, purity of intention, and goodness to fellow human beings as integral to faith and belief in One God, which they claim on the surface but lack real and sincere commitment for. In this another verse of the Qur’an (49:14), it also makes this reference: “The Bedouin Arab says: “I am a believer (in God).” Say to him: “you are not a believer; rather say: you have submitted to God (become a Muslim), while faith (Imam) is yet to enter your heart.”
13. God acknowledges first-generation emigrants (muhajirin) and helpers (ansar) for their strong faith and exceptional good works (9:100–104, 117).
It is universally understood and acknowledged that the early followers of the prophet both in Makkah and Madinah from among those who immigrated (Muhajirin—immigrants; plural of muhajir) to Madinah and other places and those of Madinah who sheltered (Ansar—helpers; plural of nasir) and worked alongside the immigrants are the best generations of the faithful that ever existed and who paved the way for Islam and faith in One God to take strong hold in human societies, following the footsteps of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. Both groups understood what is at stake for human societies in generation and the Arab tribes in particular, committed to the essence of truth and justice as the foundation of human development and spiritual growth, and demonstrated uncompromising stance in their faith in One God and establishing the rule of divine laws and human laws in their societies and wherever they happen to be at any given time in their lives.
The commitment that the two groups made to another in forming a bond of faith and mutual respect, friendship, and familial ties without being of the same family, sharing in property and fruits of their labor, loyalty to the Prophet, and walking in his footsteps are legendary and worthy of emulation for all generations. Verse 100 includes three groups of people in receiving God’s mercy, blessing, pleasure, and His commitment to reward them not only in their earthly life and existence but also after resurrection in the life to come: (1) those Muhajirin who migrated from the persecution of Makkah before the Prophet’s own migration to Madinah, (2) those Ansar who accepted the immigrants, gave them shelter and support, and formed a bond of brotherhood and sisterhood that was unprecedented in human history, and (3) those who followed the examples of both groups as further migration took place after the Hijrah (the year of the Prophet’s migration, from which the Islamic calendar is dated). The community in Madinah grew in size and built a foundation of truth and justice not only for themselves but also for their surrounding communities and tribes and for all generations to come and all over the world.
The Qur’an also acknowledges that even in such exemplary groups, there were hypocrites who failed to understand and commit to the ideals propagated by the Prophet and his sincere followers. Among these hypocrites, some realized their failings and corrected their ways, while others dug in their heels until they were exposed, humiliated, and rejected by the community after due deliberation.
14. A house of worship can be a source of evil (9:107–110).
A house of worship of God is a sacred sanctuary for everyone and anyone who wishes to worship God, be it a mosque, a synagogue, a church, or a temple. Each religious group has created their own rituals and structures for places of worship, and there are also ethnic and geographic variations of the rituals and structures that evolved over the generations of the faithful on this planet. Such places of worship are purposely built and generally funded by the community to serve the faithful to worship God and to serve the community’s collective interests and benefits. Throughout history such places of worship have also been built by kings and emperors and wealthy individuals to serve the nation and the community, and in certain instances, these were also built to advance personal interests, names, and forms of worship not sanctioned by God or the prevailing religious practices and norms.
The Qur’an makes mention of a particular mosque that was built in Quba, near a place where the Prophet established his first mosque as he came to settle in Madinah after his migration from Makkah. The current mosque in Quba that exists still today was built by the community to memorialize the place where the Prophet rested in the outskirts of Madinah, waiting for other immigrants to follow him before moving to the center of Madinah, where the current Mosque of the Prophet stands. The mosque in question, which was demolished during the life of the Prophet and the Qur’an, is mentioned as a mosque built on a foundation of mistrust, to cause division and confusion in the minds of the people and to advance the hypocrisy of some of the people under the leadership of Abu Amir, an adversary of the Prophet and of Islam. Abu Amir was a tribal leader in the vicinity of Madinah, who converted to Christianity before the Prophet immigrated to Madinah and was well versed in the Bible. Unlike a number of Christians who came to know the Prophet personally or heard of him and came to accept or acknowledge his Prophethood, Abu Amir never accepted him as a prophet and as a leader, even though on the surface, he accepted Islam and became one of the leading hypocrites, especially after the Prophet and the early Muslims prevailed against the Makkan forces in the battle of Badr, the first major armed conflict between the Muslims and their Makkan adversaries.
He was angered by the steady rise of the Prophet and his followers since their migration to Madinah and the consequential conquest of Makkah in 628 and the following battle of Hunayin, where other major tribes in Makkah were also defeated. They were the final straw to move Abu Amir to declare open hostility to the Prophet, and he traveled to the court of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius to seek his support in containing the rise of the Prophet. To cause further chaos in Madinah, he instructed his followers to build a mosque near the Mosque of Quba, presumably to serve the poor and ease the burden of people to travel no farther to attend daily congregational prayers. As the Qur’an declares—and the Prophet was unsuspecting of its true intent—it was a mosque built to cause disbelief and mistrust among the believers and to serve as the station for Abu Amr on his return with Byzantine imperial forces.
As it had happened in many other occasions, the Qur’anic revelation was instrumental in informing the Prophet the real motivation behind this mosque, and he was instructed not to enter and pray in that mosque, which he was planning to do after his return from the Tabuk expedition. The Qur’an openly declares that this mosque represents a group of hypocrites who are full of disbelief and were standing on the cliff about to be falling into a pit of fire, the fire of hell. True believers should stay away from such a mosque and from such people to remain true to God, His message, and to pursue their goal of truth of justice in this world under the leadership of the Prophet.
Such examples and instructions in revelations are also relevant to our life and our contemporary world, where many of the religious establishments are fraught with corrupt practices, financial mismanagement, sexual abuse, and evil alliances with dishonest politicians and greedy people among many religions. The alliance of ISIS and the Taliban with corrupt imams and mosques is well known and established. The corruptions of sexual abuse and financial mismanagement in the Catholic Church have rocked Christianity and reached to the highest echelon of power in the papal institution. The current political alliance between some of the evangelical priests and the Trump administration is disturbing, to say the least. The rise of religiously motivated killing and mischief against lower-caste Hindus and other non-Hindu minorities in India today, with implicit support from the ruling Hindu Nationalist Party, is a cause of major concern in one of the largest democracies in the world. The widespread genocide and ethnic cleansing by Myanmar military against minority Muslims was aided by Buddhist monks and some of their followers in a manner no different than how some of the so-called imams and their followers encourage suicide bombing and killing of innocent in the name of religion or power.
15. All revelations confirm God’s promise to reward faith and goodness (9:111–112).
One of the major confirmations of the Qur’an is that faith coupled with goodness is what God is looking for from every human being, irrespective of religious affiliations. There are too many places in the Qur’an in which the emphasis has been to develop true faith in God and then to attest to human goodness, which is inspired and programmed by God Himself so that each one of can fulfill our presence as a human being to uplift ourselves and our fellow human beings while taking advantage of natural resources and natural laws to improve our human condition all over this planet.
In this particular instance, God is making reference to people of faith and goodness who not only affirm such truth but then commit to devote their properties and wealth and even put their own lives at risk to establish and preserve truth and justice while being faithful to God. It is likened to a covenant or a bargain that God strikes with such people so that when they struggle for truth and justice based on God’s guidance, and not to advance their narrow and selfish personal and communal agendas, God will return His favor, whether they prevail in their struggle or lose their lives in the process. This binding contract, God says, is in all the books of revelations—the Qur’an, the Bible, the Torah—and is not something new that He is offering to the Muslims and had offered to all followers of prophets and people of genuine faith in One God and commitment in human goodness. In the same breath, God is also reassuring that He fulfills His part of the bargain better than anyone else. Therefore, anyone who makes this bargain with God should feel elated and convinced that they have made the right bargain.
Following this affirmation and assurance, God repeats what it means to be a person of faith and human goodness in listing key attributes that are easy to remind ourselves of every now then and not get caught up in minute details of mere rituals that some of the clerics and religious scholars are more interested in to preach and enforce. Here are the key attributes:
· We incline to God and are mindful of God’s active presence in our lives and in the world affairs that unfold during our lifetime as well as in its past and in its future.
· We serve God (by serving people) and show devotion through the following:
o Praising God for all that He is and for all that He gifted us with.
o Understanding the transient nature of our lives on this planet.
o Fasting, learning restraints, practicing emotional intelligence, and sharing with others.
o Bowing and prostrating to God in devotion, humility, and thankfulness.
· We establish and sustain all that is good in our lives and in the society we live in.
· We actively oppose and eliminate all that is evil and vain in our lives and in our societies.
· We fulfill all covenants with God and with fellow human beings.
This simple and elegant recipe of faith and goodness is common in all religions, including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, where there is a clear chain of revelations that support the continuity of such propositions and can also be found in the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, and Hindu religious books in our contemporary world. The Ten Commandments that Moses brought to his people and to the world, the principal guidance that Jesus reiterated in his Sermon on the Mount, and a summary of his teachings that Prophet Mohammad reminded his followers and the future world about are further corroborations of this unity of God’s affirmation about faith and goodness that defines human beings, irrespective of our narrow religious affiliations. (See the Volume 2 appendices on Prophet Mohammad’s last khutbah (sermon), the Sermon on the Mount by Prophet Jesus, and the Ten Commandments of Prophet Moses).
16. Polytheism and disbelief are inexcusable after belief in One God (9:113–115).
In the early days of Islam, almost all new Muslims have family members, relatives, and close friends who did not embrace Islam. While there were enmity, discord, and even armed conflicts between these opposing groups, many Muslims also felt saddened and concerned about the welfare of immediate family members, such as disbelieving or polytheistic parents, siblings, or children, since Islamic belief and the revelations in the Qur’an make it very explicit that disbelief and polytheism in the face of active revelation from God and in the presence of a prophet of God is an inexcusable offense against God and will not be forgiven. So out of genuine concern and sorrow, some Muslims would pray for their dead relatives who died in a state of disbelief or polytheism; they are being asked not to do so, and they are reminded that even Prophet Abraham was asked not to pray for his father, who was a confirmed polytheist.
While no one can know what condition each one of us will find ourselves in the afterlife, our faith in God demands that God is the most generous, forgiving, and just in His treatment of His creation, and God does not accept any intervention or advocacy on behalf of a disbeliever or a polytheist but encourages us all to pray and ask for forgiveness for other believers so that their good works can be rewarded and their evils, if any, may be forgiven.
We are also reminded that God reveals and provides guidance to inform and guide human beings and not to lead them away from truth and justice. Therefore, if anyone, after God’s guidance and reminders, continues to persist in disbelief and injustice or goes back after embracing such faith and guidance, then they do so at their own peril, and people of faith should assume no further responsibilities for their condition or fate. In this instance, it is also pertinent to remind us all that we are asked to be generous, courteous, and just to anyone, irrespective of their faith or lack thereof.
17. Education is to pursued, even in the face of conflicts and persecution (9:122).
The entire time of the Prophet’s life, especially his ten years in Madinah, was consumed in teaching the essence of faith, truth, and justice, and setting up governance and framework for community building and peaceful coexistence with other communities. When hostilities faced them, they were to engage in armed conflict to defend themselves and to protect their right to practice faith and goodness, according to the guidance from God. In the later years in Madinah, while the community was getting larger and more people were coming to Islam, the level of conflicts also increased and became more frequent, so much so that the Prophet and his followers were in a constant state of preparedness while also trying to continue the work of engaging people from all walks of life and from all tribes to understand faith and goodness.
As the demand to defend and fight was constant and the loss of life on both sides was certain, this revelation brings out another priority that will become even more important in the immediate future but also for the distant future to our current generations, as well as past generations. That is the pursuit of knowledge—all forms of knowledge, not just religious rituals, but knowledge of human sciences, humanities, and revelations from God as a composite and holistic learning so that people are motivated not only to defend truth and justice but to develop mindfulness, social norms, and informed understanding of human conditions so that such fighting is diminished over time, and the rules of law and justice, social and communal coexistence, become the norms.
These dual pursuits—to defend human freedom and to seek knowledge to improve the human condition and also deepen faith in God and gain better appreciation of the world created by God—have been the hallmarks of Islamic civilization from its early day to the seventeenth century. Affluence and internal rivalries among the Muslims led to a focus on material consumption, power hunger, and the loss of appetite for knowledge and justice, while the Europeans, as they came in contact with Muslims and their accomplishments, developed a fuller appreciation for knowledge and social justice—at least for themselves, if not for others—an unfortunate dichotomy that has existed in most human civilizations and persists even to this day.
18. The Prophet’s disposition and role explained (9:128–129).
The Qur’an declared—and the world history of last fourteen hundred years clearly bears out—that Prophet Mohammad was gifted with the most exemplary human character and traits (for example - 68:4, 33:21, 3:159) and contains a number of verses containing guidance specifically directed to the Prophet for patience, gentleness, wisdom, empathy, and mercy for people in general and for the faithful (see verses 15:88, 21:107, 26:3, 49:7, 9:61) who followed him through thick and thin.
Verse 128 is one of the most eloquent verses that I have come to treasure—a verse that directly confirms his mission and his purpose and brings to the surface the most important focus of this mission, which is humanity in general and those of faithful in particular. This verse confirms and is true of all prophets, that God never sends a prophet except that they are from their community and can speak their language; understand their values, culture, and history; and engage with them as one of them. This belonging is something that the prophets do not control but are given, but the next set of characteristics is something that is certainly gifted but is the result of their own conscious effort, sublime character building, and genuine and passionate concern and empathy for their people, for humanity, and for their followers as a true leader. Mind that I am calling them “leaders” in a holistic sense, as opposed to “religious leaders” in a narrower sense. Unfortunately, too many of our clerics and people of religious rights from all faith groups have confined and distorted faith into a narrow band of ritualistic devotions and squeezed out humanity from their thought process or the definition of their faith and its obligations or guidance.
In this verse, the Qur’an declares the prophet to be someone who is concerned about the welfare of his people—their human conditions, prevailing social norms, and pervasive injustice that causes distress and difficulty to them. He does not just dwell on those deep disturbances in his mind and soul, but his concerns are then translated into active and genuine interest and activism to remove the root causes of such distress and injustice. And for those who find his teachings acceptable and align themselves with him with his worthy and noble human cause, he is ever the leader full of empathy, kindness, and gentleness that is unparalleled in human history. His unconditional pardon and empathy during the conquest of Makkah for his enemies, who drove him only ten years prior from his own home and tried to kill him and tortured his followers, is just one example of what this verse really implies. Such a condition requires deep knowledge and wisdom, a sense of nobility and unparalleled humility, a keen awareness that we all come from God and we all go back to God. Our accountability to God and fellow human beings is based on a set of treasured and well-defined values and principles articulated by God in various revelations but also ingrained in our own natures, like the beauty of a rose or the greenness of a leaf. The very first revelation (Chapter 96:1–5) makes eloquent reference to this aspect of God’s teaching and human aspirations like a grand opening to the human drama.
This verse is then followed by an uncompromising stance of such grand human nature that if there are people unwilling to accept such grandeur in human conduct and deny God as the center of our existence, then the prophet should not be overly grieved and should not seek to force them, but rely on God for the ultimate outcome and be assured that God is the source of all powers and natural laws that govern our lives and our universe. The sentiment also expressed in chapter 96 (verses 9–19) would be worth revisiting as you read this commentary on these two verses. This is another example of the Qur’anic teaching, in which ideas and instructions get repeated on numerous occasions to fit various contexts but always are anchored on a set of core values and messages.