Verses 1–16

Examining Narrations

(1) In Tafsīr al-Qummī, about the verse, A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger (9:1), it is narrated from ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm’s father, from Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl, from Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from Abū al-Ṣabāḥ al-Kinānī, from Imām al-Ṣādiq: ‘This verse was revealed after the Messenger of God returned from the Battle of Tabūk, in the ninth year of the Hijra.’

He says: ‘When the Messenger of God conquered Mecca, he did not prevent the idolaters from performing the Hajj pilgrimage that year, and it was the custom of the Arabs during the Hajj that whoever entered Mecca and circumambulated the House of God in their garments was not allowed to keep them, so they would give their clothes as charity and not wear them after the circumambulation. Therefore, whoever came to Mecca would borrow a robe for circumambulation and then return it, and if they could not borrow a robe but only had one set of clothes for themselves, they would go around completely nude.

18:33‘A beautiful Arab woman came to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage and sought to borrow a robe, but no one would lend one to her. People told her: “If you go around in your clothes, you will have to give them as charity.” She said: “How shall I give them away while I have nothing else to wear?” So she went around the House of God in the nude while people looked on, covering her modesty with one hand at her front and another at her back, reciting the poem:

‘“What shows today in part or full / however much, is against my will.”

‘Prior to the revelation of Sūrah Barāʾa, the practice of the Prophet had been not to fight anyone save those who fought him nor to make war on anyone save those who made war on him, in accordance with the verse, So if they keep out of your way and do not fight you, and offer you peace, then Allah does not allow you any course against them (4:90). Therefore, up until this point, the Prophet did not fight anyone who kept away from him and avoided fighting him. Then Sūrah Barāʾa was revealed and he was commanded to fight the idolaters whether they fought him or not, except those with whom he had made a treaty on the day he conquered Mecca until that treaty expired. These include Ṣafwān ibn Umayya and Suhayl ibn ʿAmr. God said: A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger to the polytheists with whom you had made a treaty: Travel in the land for four months (9:4), then they will be slain wherever they are thereafter. These four months grace were the last twenty days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, Ṣafar, Rabīʿ al-Awwal, and the first ten days of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar.

‘When Sūrah Barāʾa was revealed to the Prophet, he gave it to Abū Bakr and commanded him to go forth to Mecca and recite it to people in Minā on the Day of Sacrifice. When Abū Bakr went forth, Gabriel came down to the Prophet and said: “O Muḥammad, none can deliver it on your behalf save a man who is from you.”

‘So God’s Messenger sent the Commander of the Faithful after Abū Bakr to tell him to return and took the verses from him. Abū Bakr returned to God’s Messenger and said: “O Messenger of God, did God reveal something about me?” He said: “No, but God said that only I or a man from myself could deliver this message.”’

(2) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Ḥarīr, from Imām al-Ṣādiq: ‘God’s Messenger sent Abū Bakr to the pilgrimage with the repudiation proclamation that he might recite it to the people, but Gabriel came down and told the Prophet: “No one can deliver this message for you except ʿAlī.” So he sent for ʿAlī and told him to take his camel al-ʿAḍbāʾ, catch up with Abū Bakr, take the proclamation from him, and recite it to the people in Mecca. Abū Bakr asked: “Is he displeased with me?” He said: “No, but God revealed that none should deliver this message except a man from himself.”

18:34‘Then, when he arrived in Mecca, it was after noon on the Day of Slaughter (Yawm al-Naḥr), which is the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage (Yawm al-Ḥajj al-Akbar). He said: “I am the messenger of God’s Messenger to you!” Then he recited: A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger to the polytheists with whom you had made a treaty: Travel in the land for four months—the last twenty days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, Ṣafar, Rabīʿ al-Awwal, and the first ten days of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar—then he said: “Let none go around the House nude, male or female, and no idolater after this year, and whoever has a treaty with God’s Messenger, its duration is for these four months.”’ Author’s comments: Based on what comes later in the narration, he said this in order to provide an expiration date for the treaties that were of indef - nite length. As for those treaties that were already of a fixed duration, they remained valid until their end, as made clear by the verse itself.

(3) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī and Majmaʿ al-bayān, it is narrated from Abū Baṣīr from Imām al-Bāqir: ‘ʿAlī addressed the people, unsheathed his sword, and said: “None shall circumambulate God’s House naked! No idolater may perform the pilgrimage! Whoever had a treaty of fixed duration, it is valid for its duration! And whoever had a treaty without a fixed duration, it is valid for four months!” He addressed them on the Day of Slaughter. The four months grace were the last twenty days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, Muḥarram, Ṣafar, Rabīʿ al-Awwal, and the first ten days of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar… the Day of Slaughter was the Greater Day of the Pilgrimage.’

Author’s comments: There are more narrations from the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household with the same meaning than can be counted.

(4) In al-Durr al-manthūr, it is narrated from ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Zawāʾid al-Musnad, Abū al-Shaykh, and Ibn Mardawayh, from ʿAlī: ‘When the ten verses of repudiation were revealed to the Prophet, he first called for Abū Bakr to go and recite them to the people of Mecca. Then he summoned me and told me to go after with Abū Bakr and, when I caught up with him, to take the proclamation from him. Abū Bakr returned and said: “O Messenger of God, was something revealed about me?” He said: “No, but Gabriel came to me and told me that no one could deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself.”’

18:35(5) In the same source, it is narrated from Ibn Mardawayh, from Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ that the Messenger of God sent Abū Bakr to recite the proclamation of repudiation to the people of Mecca, then he sent ʿAlī after him to take the proclamation from him. This disturbed Abū Bakr, but the Prophet said: ‘O Abū Bakr, it cannot be delivered except by me or a man from myself.’

(6) In the same source, Ibn Mardawayh narrates from Abū Rāf ʿ: ‘The Messenger of God sent Abū Bakr to the Hajj pilgrimage with the repudiation proclamation, but Gabriel came and told the Prophet: “No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself.” So, he sent ʿAlī after him; he met him between Mecca and Medina, took the notice from him, and recited it to the people at the pilgrimage.’

(7) In the same source, Ibn Ḥibbān and Ibn Mardawayh narrate from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: ‘God’s Messenger sent Abū Bakr to deliver the proclamation of repudiation on his behalf, but, after he had sent him, he called for ʿAlī and said: “O ʿAlī no one except me or a man from myself can deliver it on my behalf.” So, he put ʿAlī upon is camel al-ʿAḍbāʾ and he travelled until he caught up with Abū Bakr and took the proclamation from him.

‘Abū Bakr returned to the Prophet, and he was fearful that God had revealed something about him, so when he arrived, he asked: “What did I do, O Messenger of God?” He said: “Goodness, you are my brother, my companion in the cave, and you will be with me at the Pool, but no one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself.”’

Author’s comments: There are other narrations with the same meaning as the ones presented here. Tafsīr al-Burhān narrates from Ibn Shahrāshūb, from al-Ṭabrisī, al-Balādhurī, al-Tirmidhī, al-Wāqidī, al-Shaʿbī, al-Sudayy, al-Thaʿlabī, al-Wāḥidī, al-Qurṭubī, al-Qushayrī, al-Samʿānī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Ibn Baṭṭa, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, al-Aʿmash, and Sammāk ibn Ḥarb, who narrate in their own works from ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr, Abū Hurayra, Anas, Abī Rāf ʿ, Zayd ibn Nafīʿ, Ibn ʿUmar, and Ibn ʿAbbās the following: ‘When A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger and the subsequent nine verses were revealed, the Prophet dispatched Abū Bakr to Mecca to convey them to the people. But Gabriel came down and said: “No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself.” So, the Prophet said to the Commander of the Faithful: “Take my camel al-ʿAḍbāʾ, catch up with Abū Bakr, and take the proclamation from his hand.”

18:36‘Then, when Abū Bakr returned to the Prophet, he was distressed and said: “O Messenger of God, you considered me worthy of an affair for which people had stretched out their necks, but when I undertook it, you recalled me from it?” He said: “The Trustworthy One descended to me from God and told me, ‘No one can deliver the proclamation except you or a man from yourself,’ and ʿAlī is from myself, so none can deliver it on my behalf except ʿAlī.”’

In the narrations we have cited here and those we have not cited (which are, in fact, even more numerous) and those which we will cite in this regard, there are two main points:

First, that the Prophet sent ʿAlī with the proclamation and recalled Abū Bakr because this was something that God had commanded him to do through Gabriel: ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself.’ Notice that this injunction is not specific to delivering the repudiation, or the annulment of a treaty. In none of the narrations does Gabriel say, ‘None can deliver a repudiation or annul a treaty except you or a man from yourself.’ So, there is no basis for saying that this ordinance only applied in the specific case of the proclamation of repudiation, which is what many commentators have claimed. Our position is supported by the categorical nature of the statement, as we shall see.

The second point is that just as ʿAlī was the one to proclaim the repudiation, he was also the one to proclaim the other ordinances, namely that whoever had a treaty of a fixed duration, the treaty would continue to its full term, and whoever had a treaty without a fixed duration, its term would expire after four months. And this is something that is also indicated by the verses of repudiation.

He also delivered the ordinance that no one should go around the House of God naked, which is also a divine commandment per the verse O Children of Adam! Put on your adornment in every place of prayer (7:31). Some narrations also cite this verse in this regard, as we shall see.

In addition to these, he delivered the ordinance that no idolater would be allowed to go around the House of God or perform the Hajj pilgrimage after the present year, as indicated by the verse: O you who have faith! The polytheists are indeed unclean: so let them not approach the Holy Mosque after this year (9:28).

18:37There is also a fifth detail mentioned in one of the narrations that have come down on this topic; that he announced that no one shall enter paradise except a believer. This statement is not mentioned in any of the other narrations, and it seems improbable that ʿAlī would include this in the proclamation.¹ After all, this cannot have been something that the idolaters were unaware of by this stage in the Prophet’s mission, when so many verses had been already been revealed with this meaning in both Mecca and Medina. However, at the same time, there is nothing to suggest that ʿAlī’s mission was confined to conveying the verses of repudiation. On the contrary, he delivered three or four other Qur’anic ordinances at the same time, all of which were included in Gabriel’s message to God’s Messenger, namely: ‘no one can deliver it except you or a man from yourself,’ and there is nothing at all to suggest that this only concerned the proclamation of repudiation.

(8) In al-Durr al-manthūr, it is narrated from al-Tirmidhī, who declared it a good (ḥasan) narration, and Ibn Abī Ḥātim, and al-Ḥākim, who declared it authentic (ṣaḥīḥ), and Ibn Mardawayh, and al-Bayhaqī in al-Dalāʾil, from Ibn ʿAbbās: ‘God’s Messenger sent Abū Bakr and told him to proclaim these words, then he sent ʿAlī after him and told him to proclaim them instead. So, they went together, performed the pilgrimage, then ʿAlī stood up during the Days of Tashrīq (the 11th, 12th, and 13th of Dhū al-Ḥijja) and announced: “A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger to the polytheists with whom you had made a treaty: Travel in the land for four months. No idolater shall perform the Hajj after this year, nor shall anyone go around the House naked, nor shall anyone enter paradise except a believer”—ʿAlī proclaimed all of these.’

Author’s comments: This report is similar in meaning to what we have extracted from the previous narrations.

(9) In the same source, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ibn Mundhir, and Ibn Abī Ḥātim narrate from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab from Abū Hurayra: ‘The Prophet told Abū Bakr to proclaim the repudiation during his pilgrimage.’

18:38Abū Hurayra said: ‘Then the Prophet sent ʿAlī after him and told him to proclaim the repudiation while Abū Bakr was already performing the pilgrimage.’

Author’s comments: It has come down via a number of Sunnī sources that the Prophet made Abū Bakr his representative for the pilgrimage that year, so he was the Hajj leader while ʿAlī was the one who announced the repudiation to the people. On the other hand, Shīʿī sources say that the Prophet made ʿAlī the Hajj leader and that he entrusted him to announce the verses proclaiming the repudiation to the people. Al-Ṭabrisī mentions this in Majmaʿ al-Bayān and al-ʿAyyāshī narrates it from Zurāra from Imām al-Bāqir. This might be supported by the fact that ʿAlī was performing the duties of a judge (qāḍī) while on this journey and the Prophet had appointed him in this role. After all, it is obvious that appointing someone as a messenger to deliver the repudiation proclamation does not automatically confer him with the authority to adjudicate in people’s disputes. It seems highly plausible that he was given this responsibility as part of his role as Hajj leader. The narration is as follows:

(10) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from al-Ḥasan, from ʿAlī that when the Prophet sent him to announce the repudiation to the people, he said: ‘O Prophet, I am not a speaker or a preacher!’ He said: ‘God abhors that I should permit anyone to convey this message save myself or you.’ ʿAlī said: ‘If it is necessary, then I will go.’ He said: ‘Go, for God will steady your tongue and guide your heart.’ Then the Prophet placed his hand upon ʿAlī’s mouth and said: ‘Go and recite it to the people.’ He added: ‘People shall come to you to resolve their disputes. If two disputants come to you, do not rule in one’s favour until you have heard the other, as this is the best way to discern the truth of the matter.’

Author’s comments: Traditions with a similar meaning have also been transmitted in Sunnī sources. For example, in al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is narrated from Abū al-Shaykh, from ʿAlī: ‘The Messenger of God sent me to Yemen with (Sūrah) Barāʾa, and I said: “O Messenger of God, how can you send me while I am still a young lad, and if I am asked to judge in a matter I will not know what to say?” He said: “Either you must go with it, or I must go with it.” He said: “If it must be done, I will go.” He said: “Go, for God will steady your tongue and guide your heart.” Then, he said: “Go and recite it to the people.”’

The fact that this narration makes reference to Yemen casts doubt upon its authenticity, as it is obvious from the wording of the verses themselves that Sūrah al-Barāʾa was recited to the people of Mecca on the Greater Day of the Pilgrimage in Mecca. This does not have anything to do with Yemen or its inhabitants. It seems that the original wording of the narration should have been ‘to Mecca,’ rather than ‘to Yemen,’ based on what the verse says about judgement.

18:39(11) In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Aḥmad, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn al-Mundhir, and Ibn Mardawayh narrate from Abū Hurayra: ‘I was with ʿAlī when the Messenger of God sent him with four (ordinances): That no one should go around God’s House naked; that the Muslims and idolaters would not make the pilgrimage together after this year; that whoever had a treaty with God’s Messenger, the treaty would continue for its duration; and that God and His Messenger had repudiated the idolaters.’

Author’s comments: There are multiple narrations transmitted from Abū Hurayra with the same meaning but different phrasing. However, the texts of these narrations are not free of problems, as we shall discuss. The one quoted here is perhaps the strongest of them in this regard.

(12) In the same source, Aḥmad, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn al-Mundhir, and Ibn Mardawayh narrate from Abū Hurayra: ‘I was with ʿAlī when the Messenger of God sent him to the people of Mecca with (Sūrah) Barāʾa, and we proclaimed that no one would enter paradise except a believer, that no one should go around the House of God naked, that whoever had a treaty with God’s Messenger, it would expire in four months’ time, and that when these four months had passed, God and His Messenger would be absolved of the idolaters, and no idolater would be allowed to make the Hajj pilgrimage after this year.’ Author’s comments: There are obvious textual confusions in this narration. First, because it includes the announcement that none will enter paradise except a believer. We have already discussed how this concept had been presented in numerous verses of the Qur’an from both before and after the Prophet’s Emigration over the course of his career, and that this was something everyone would have been aware of, whether Muslim or idolater, citydweller or nomad. Therefore, what need would there have been to convey this to those assembled?

Secondly, the announcement concerning the treaties between the Messenger of God and the idolaters does not accord with what the Qur’an’s own verses have to say on the matter, nor with the numerous narrations we have already examined, namely that the repudiation would come into effect after four months for everyone.

18:40And thirdly, what we shall mention below.

(13) In the same source, al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Mardawayh, and al-Bayhaqī in al-Dalāʾil narrate from Abū Hurayra: ‘Abū Bakr sent me out during that pilgrimage with the announcers he had sent on the Day of Slaughter to deliver the announcement in Minā that no idolater would be allowed perform Hajj after that year, nor would they be allowed to go around the House of God naked. Then the Prophet sent ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib next and told him to announce the repudiation, so on the Day of Slaughter, ʿAlī announced with us the repudiation, that no idolater would be permitted to perform Hajj after this year, and that no one should go around the house of God naked.’

(14) In Tafsīr al-Manār, it is narrated from al-Tirmidhī, from Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet sent Abū Bakr… then ʿAlī stood up during the Days of Tashrīq and called out: ‘God and His Messenger are freed from responsibility for any idolater, so travel in the land for four months, and no idolater shall make the pilgrimage after this year, nor shall they go around the House of God naked, nor shall anyone enter paradise except a believer. ʿAlī announced this amongst the pilgrims until his voice became hoarse, then Abū Hurayra took over from him.’

(15) In the same source, from Aḥmad and al-Nasāʾī, it is narrated via Muḥarrar ibn Abī Hurayra from his father: ‘I was with ʿAlī when the Messenger of God sent him to Mecca with the proclamation of repudiation. We announced that none would enter paradise except every Muslim soul, nor should anyone go around the House of God naked, and that anyone who had a treaty with the Messenger of God, the treaty would be honored for its duration, and that no idolater would be permitted to make the Hajj pilgrimage after this year. I called out with him until I lost my voice.’

Author’s comments: You can see that what all of these narrations have in common is the fact that the Prophet sent ʿAlī in place of Abū Bakr after Gabriel descended and told him, ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself.’ This is also reflected in the Prophet’s response to Abū Bakr when he asked why he had been relieved of this duty, namely that God had revealed to him words to the effect that ‘No one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself.’

18:41In any case, this statement is general and, as such, it covers not only delivering the repudiation but any divine command that the Prophet needed someone to convey to the people. There is no evidence in the texts of the narrations or anywhere else that this principle only applied to Sūrah Barāʾa. The prohibition on circumambulating the Kaʿba naked, or of idolaters attending the Hajj in following years, announcing that treaties with a fixed duration will lapse once this duration is complete, and stipulating a duration for those treaties without a set duration are all clearly divine ordinances revealed along with the Qur’an. Therefore, what is the significance of giving responsibility for these to Abū Bakr and then taking it away, or having Abū Hurayra announce them by himself, or him proclaiming them as part of a group when ʿAlī’s voice had grown hoarse until he lost his own voice from crying out so much? Were it permitted for Abū Hurayra to undertake this by himself in this situation, then why was it not permitted for Abū Bakr to do likewise?

This is why some commentators such as Ibn Kathīr and others like him have devised a justification for the contents of these narrations in order to defend their validity, namely that the phrase ‘No one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself’ only refers to conveying the repudiation; it does not encompass any of the other ordinances that ʿAlī proclaimed. Hence, they say, the Prophet only appointed ʿAlī to convey the verses of Sūrah Barāʾa to the assembled pilgrims because it was the custom of the Arabs that a treaty could not be broken except by one of its parties or a man from his own household, and that it was out of respect for this custom that the Prophet sent ʿAlī to take over delivery of the proclamation from Abū Bakr, as this contained the revocation of the treaty with the idolaters.

This, they say, is what it meant when Abū Bakr asked the Prophet: ‘O Messenger of God, was something revealed about me?’ He said: ‘No, but no one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself.’ In other words: ‘I only removed you and sent ʿAlī out of respect for this Arab custom.’

Therefore, this appointment did not deprive Abū Bakr from his position as leader of the Hajj, and Abū Bakr had announcers proclaiming these new ordinances to the pilgrims, such as Abū Hurayra and other men whose names are not mentioned in the narrations. ʿAlī was one of those with this task, which is why some narrations describe Abū Bakr delivering a sermon to the pilgrims in Minā before turning to ʿAlī and telling him: ‘Stand up, O ʿAlī and deliver the message of God’s Messenger.’ These are the justifications offered for these accounts.

However, when examining these verses and narrations, a critical researcher will ponder the theological disagreements that erupted between Sunnī and Shīʿī Muslims and recall that both sects sought to demonstrate the superiority of their favoured candidate to succeed the Prophet (i.e. Abū Bakr or ʿAlī) over the other. Furthermore, they will not doubt that the scholars of these two sects have confused the study of exegesis (tafsīr), the study of narrations (riwāyāt), and the study of theology with one another. The purpose of exegesis is to uncover the meanings of the Qur’an’s verses; the purpose of the study of narrations is to examine the meaning of narrations in order to distinguish the authentic from the inauthentic amongst them; and the study of theology (kalām) is concerned with the question of whether Abū Bakr was superior to ʿAlī or ʿAlī was superior to Abū Bakr. This means that in their commentaries on these accounts, scholars have tended to focus on the question of which was superior in status: leading the Hajj or delivering the verses of Sūrah Barāʾa? And, if leading the Hajj was superior, then was it entrusted to ʿAlī or to Abū Bakr? As regards the theological discussion, that is not something we wish to delve into here as it is beyond the aims of our present work. However, from the perspective of exegesis and narrations, insofar as these are connected to the meaning of the verses, it can be said that these scholars have erred in their explanation of these verses.

18:42I would like to know from whence these scholars have drawn the conclusion that the Prophet’s statement, ‘No one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself,’ is restricted to the breaking of treaties and does not apply to anything else beyond that. There is no evidence for this from reason or revelation. Furthermore, the Prophet’s statement is already clear in its meaning, namely that the Messenger of God was responsible for conveying this message and that no one could perform this duty except him or a man from himself. The breaking of the treaty with the idolaters was something ordained by God, as was the repudiation, or any other ordinance He sent down to the Prophet that was the responsibility of God’s Messenger to convey.

This is distinct from those messages of his that he was not charged with conveying to others personally, such as the letters he sent to different kings, nations, and peoples summoning them to embrace Islam. The same is true of the other letters he sent via faithful men to instruct people in matters of religion or concerning affairs of government, leadership, and the like thereof.

However, there is a clear difference between these sorts of matters and that of the repudiation proclamation and similar affairs: In addition to the verses of repudiation, it also prohibited circumambulation while naked and forbade idolaters from performing Hajj after that year. These were new divine ordinances that had not yet been conveyed to those who needed to hear them, namely those idolaters who were resident in Mecca and those visiting it as pilgrims. For a message of this importance and magnitude, none could deliver it on behalf of God except His Messenger. In other circumstances, where the Prophet used ordinary messengers to convey messages, this was where he had already delivered the original revelation by conveying it to the people around him. This was the case with his summons to submit to God and all of the other teachings of the religion, for which he would say: ‘Let those of you who are present convey it to those who are absent.’ Then, if he needed to convey an ordinance to someone where ordinary means were not suf cient to convey the message or where using these means to deliver it would prove ineffective, he would write a letter or send an of cial messenger, as he did when he was summoning emperors and kings to Islam.

18:43If any objective researcher reflects on the meaning of the words ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself,’ they will note that he said, ‘no one can deliver it from for you (ʿanka) except you.’ He did not say, ‘no one can deliver it except you or a man from yourself’ as this would suggest that this person shared his status as a divine messenger. Nor did he say, ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf except a man from yourself,’ as this would include all of the other messages he charged the ordinary faithful to deliver on his behalf. The fact that he said: ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself’ shows that he had duties as a divine messenger that only he could discharge and that no one else could undertake in his place except someone who was from himself and could be relied upon not to fail when acting in his stead. One of these duties was delivering new ordinances from God to the people.

I wonder, then, what led these scholars to ignore the revelation that God sent to the Prophet via Gabriel, that ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself,’ and to explain it away as ‘the custom of the Arabs that a treaty could not be broken except by one of its parties or a man from his own household.’ After all, this custom of the Arabs is not recorded anywhere in the accounts of their history or battles, and this custom is not mentioned in any discussion except this one, concerning Sūrah Barāʾa, in which Ibn Kathīr mentions it and attributes it to other scholars.

Now, if it had indeed been the custom of the pre-Islamic Arabs to do this, what bearing does this custom have on Islam and what value does it have for the Prophet, given that barely a day went by without him abrogating a custom of the pre-Islamic era or breaking the traditions of his people? This custom does not reflect any lofty moral values or beneficial traditions, rather it embodies the tribal mentality of the pre-Islamic Arabs and the preferences of the clan elders. On the day he conquered Mecca, the Prophet is said to have stood before the Kaʿba and proclaimed: ‘Lo! Every exploit, every blood feud, and every claim to wealth is now beneath these two feet of mine, save for the custody of the House of God and quenching the thirst of the pilgrims!’

18:44Even if this had been an inoffensive pre-Islamic custom, did the Prophet disregard it when he entrusted the verses to Abū Bakr and sent him to deliver them to the pilgrims in Mecca? Or did he forget it until, when Abū Bakr was already on his way, he suddenly remembered or was reminded by one of his companions? And even if this was the case, was he then obliged to observe this custom? The Prophet is the paragon of good character, and taking into account whatever needs taking into account is part of judiciousness and good sense. Therefore, how could those who reminded him neglect something so important in the first instance? A custom such as this is not something one simply forgets, any more than a warrior forgets his sword.

Was it a revelation from God that he should not disregard this noble Arab custom, and that it is now a divine ordinance, meaning that it is forbidden for the ruler of the Muslims to revoke a treaty unless he does it himself or entrusts it to a member of his household? What is the sense in such a ruling?

Or was this a moral rule that the Prophet was obliged to observe because the idolaters would not have accepted the revocation of this treaty unless they heard it from him personally or from someone from his household? However, at this time, the Prophet was the one who had dominion over them, so who were they to decide whether or not they would accept such a revocation? He had the power to unilaterally revoke it, with or without their agreement.

Or was it the case that the faithful were the ones being addressed by God’s words with whom you have made a treaty (9:1), an announcement from Allah and His Messenger (9:4), and kill the polytheists (9:5)? In which case, does this mean they would not have considered their treaty with the idolaters void unless they heard these words from the Prophet or a member of his household? Would they not have realized that the treaty was voided if they had simply heard the verses from Abū Bakr? If this were the case, then why would anyone who heard the announcement from Abū Hurayra, who proclaimed it until he lost his voice, accept that the treaty was voided? Was Abū Hurayra closer to ʿAlī than Abū Bakr was to the Prophet? The truth is that all of these narrations that portray Abū Hurayra and others proclaiming this message to the people are inauthentic and should not be relied upon as historical accounts. In Tafsīr al-Manār, we read:

18:45‘The collected narrations show that the Prophet sent Abū Bakr as the leader of the Hajj in the year 9 A.H. and commanded him to inform those idolaters who were performing the pilgrimage that they would not be allowed to perform it after this year. Then, he replaced Abū Bakr with ʿAlī so that the latter could inform them that their treaties were voided, that they had a grace period of four months to consider their options, that those treaties with fixed durations would be honored until their terms had expired, and to recite to them the verses that contained these proclamations from the beginning of Sūrah Barāʾa. These are the first forty or thirty-three verses. The narrations appear to hesitate between these two numbers because some of them count in tens, counting a part thereof as a whole.

‘This is because the custom of the Arabs at the time was that treaties could only be broken by the one who made them or a member of his close family. ʿAlī alone met this criterion, but the leadership of the Hajj remained with Abū Bakr, who helped ʿAlī carry out his duty and assigned some of the Companions such as Abū Hurayra to do this too.’

He also says:

‘Some of the Shīʿa blow ʿAlī’s appointment out of all proportion—as is their habit—and they add to it details from inauthentic sources that do not match what is known from reliable narrations. They claim that this demonstrates that ʿAlī was superior to Abū Bakr and, therefore, more entitled to succeed the Prophet than him. They claim that the Prophet relieved Abū Bakr of his duty to convey Sūrah Barāʾa because Gabriel commanded him to do this, and that he told him that no one could deliver it on his behalf except him or a man from himself. Furthermore, they do not confine this restriction to the breaking of treaties. In fact, they extend it to cover the entirety of the religion.

‘There is an abundance of authentic traditions to the effect that conveying the religion of Islam to others is a collective obligation upon all the Muslims—in the same manner as defensive warfare (jihād) is a collective obligation for the sake of protecting it—and that this is a duty, not a mark of superiority. One such tradition is what the Prophet said during the Farewell Pilgrimage (Hijjat al-Wadāʿ) to an audience of thousands: “Let those present convey this to those absent.” This statement is repeated in the two Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim and in other collections. In some accounts, Ibn ʿAbbās says: “For by He in whose hand is my soul, it was his last will and testament to his nation: ‘Let those present convey this to those absent.’” Then there is the tradition: “Convey from me even but a single verse of the Qur’an.” Al-Bukhārī narrates it in his Ṣaḥīḥ and al-Tirmidhī narrates it in his Sunan. If it were not for sayings such as this, Islam would not have spread so quickly across the globe.

18:46‘In fact, some of the Shīʿa reportedly claim that he removed Abū Bakr from his post as the leader of the Hajj and appointed ʿAlī in his place. This is a manifest falsehood that contradicts everything that has been narrated about this practical issue that is known to experts and laymen alike.

‘The truth is that ʿAlī—may God ennoble his countenance—was charged with conveying a specific message but, on that pilgrimage, he went as a follower of Abū Bakr, who had overall responsibility for overseeing the performance of this annual collective pillar of Islam. This was to the extent that it was Abū Bakr who told him when he should convey the message. Recall that he said: “Stand up, O ʿAlī and deliver the message of God’s Messenger.” Then he appointed some of the Companions to help him convey it to others, as we saw in the account of Abū Hurayra that is narrated in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and other works.’

The author (of Tafsīr al-Manār) then says that Abū Bakr’s leadership of the Hajj, combined with his leadership of the prayer in place of the Prophet during the latter’s final illness, constitutes clear evidence of his superiority above all of the other Companions and, therefore, his priority to succeed the Prophet.

As for his claim that there is an abundance of authentic traditions to the effect that conveying the religion of Islam to others is a collective obligation upon all the Muslims, this shows that he has not properly understood the meaning of the divine command that was revealed to the Prophet: ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf you except you or a man from yourself.’ He has failed to realize the difference between saying, ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf (ʿanka) except you or a man from yourself,’ and the saying, ‘no you can deliver it from you (minka) except you or a man from yourself.’ As a result of this confusion, he claims that if we take the former statement (‘on your behalf’) as categorical, this means that no one except the Prophet or a man from himself can convey any aspect of the religion to anyone else. Therefore, he believes that the abundant traditions commanding Muslims to convey their religion to others as a collective obligation refutes it and qualifies the statement, ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf…’, making it specific to conveying the revocation of the treaty and reducing God’s ordinance to a mere pre-Islamic Arab custom.

18:47This confusion of terms leads him to claim that reading the statement ‘no one can deliver it on your behalf’ as categorical would lead to people neglecting a duty that is considered essential by the totality of the Muslims, namely the duty to convey the message of Islam to others. This is to the extent that he invokes evidence from the two Ṣaḥīḥs and other works in the form of the Prophetic saying: ‘Let those present convey this to those absent,’ and readers will already have noted that the Prophet’s statement, ‘no one can deliver it’ refers to new revelations, rather than the teachings of the religion as a whole.

As for his claim, ‘In fact, some of the Shīʿa reportedly claim that he removed Abū Bakr from his post as the leader of the Hajj and appointed ʿAlī in his place. This is a manifest falsehood that contradicts everything that has been narrated about this practical issue that is known to experts and laymen alike,’ this is neither merely a claim or a falsehood (in fact, he is the one uttering falsehoods). On the contrary, this is an account reported in Shīʿī sources, which we have presented above.

Disputes about the question of who led the Hajj pilgrimage that year are not our primary concern in discussing the statement, ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf you except you or a man from yourself.’ After all, whether Abū Bakr led the Hajj or whether ʿAlī did, and whether leading the Hajj indicated either of them were superior over the other, the fact is that leading the pilgrimage falls within the scope of general Islamic authority, which is concerned with managing the daily affairs of Muslim society and implementing the divine laws. It has nothing to do with divine knowledge or the contents of the revelation sent down from the heavens on matters of religious teaching.

On the contrary, it is merely a function of the Prophet’s authority as a political leader to appoint Abū Bakr or ʿAlī as the leader of the Hajj. On another day, he gave Usāma ibn Zayd authority over Abū Bakr and all of the Companions on a military expedition. On another day, he appointed Ibn Umm Maktūm as the governor of Medina, even while the city had people superior to him living in it. He appointed someone else governor of Mecca after its conquest, and another person still as governor of Yemen. He put someone else in charge of tax collection. He even made Abū Dajāna al-Sāʿidī or Sabbāʿ ibn ʿArfaṭa al-Ghaffārī (according to the Sīra of Ibn Hishām) governor of Medina in the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage before Abū Bakr had departed on the Hajj pilgrimage according to what has been narrated in al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and other collections. But none of this signifies anything more than the fact that these individuals were qualified for the roles they were given—it certainly does not render them superior to all others.

18:48As for divine revelation, which contains God’s teachings and ordinances for mankind, the Prophet cannot delegate this task to someone who is lesser than him. Nor does anyone occupying positions of temporal authority over Muslim society have the right to deal with matters of revelation, whether by declaring verses general or particular, or confirming it or abrogating it. Furthermore, divine revelation is not dictated by the pre-Islamic customs of a particular people, such that it needs to accord with these in order to keep people happy.

By confusing these two distinct arenas of authority, we bring down the divine teachings from the apogee of dignity to the perigee of social thought, and reduce them to nothing more than norms, customs, and conventions. Thus, the human being explains metaphysical realities in a way that ordinary minds can comprehend and treats as important what society considers important rather than what God considers important, while neglecting what people neglect, until it reaches the point that someone says that a divine revelation is nothing more than a pre-Islamic Arab custom.

If you ponder on the account of how the verses of repudiation were taken from Abū Bakr and given to ʿAlī as presented in these narrations, you find that the narrators have been surprisingly lax in their preservation of the material, even expanding them to include additional details from the narrators themselves (this is assuming that these accounts have not been distorted to serve some agenda). For example, in the majority of them, we are told that the Prophet sent Abū Bakr to deliver the verses to the idolaters but then sent for ʿAlī and told him to take the verses from him and deliver them to the people instead, so Abū Bakr came back. In others, we are told that he sent Abū Bakr as the leader of the Hajj pilgrimage but then sent ʿAlī after him with the verses of Sūrah Barāʾa. Others still say that Abū Bakr himself told ʿAlī to convey the verses and then ordered other Companions to assist him in delivering the message.

Meanwhile, al-Ṭabarī and others relate from al-Mujāhid concerning the verse, A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger to the polytheists with whom you had made a treaty (9:1), that it concerned treaties between the Muslims and the Khuzāʿa, Mudlij, and other tribes. According to this version of events, ‘God’s Messenger returned from the Battle of Tabūk and decided to perform the pilgrimage. However, when he arrived at the House of God, he saw the idolaters going about it in the nude and did not want to perform the pilgrimage so long as this was the case. So, he sent Abū Bakr and ʿAlī amongst the people in Dhū al-Majāz and to the places where they were engaged in trade and throughout the pilgrimage season they went around and told those idolaters who had treaties with the Prophet that these treaties would expire no later than four months thence. These four months were the four consecutive sacred months—the twenty latter days of Dhū al-Hijja until the first ten of Rabīʿ al-Awwal (sic), after which the treaty would be null and void and people would fight them until they were dead.’

18:49If this is the case, then how can the author of Tafsīr al-Manār say that Shīʿī claims are ‘a manifest falsehood that contradicts everything that has been narrated about this practical issue that is known to experts and laymen alike’? If he means everyone at the time of the Prophet who saw this or heard about it first-hand from those who did, what benefit is this to us now?

If he meant that it was known to experts and laymen from the era immediately after that of the Prophet or the era that followed this, and that they knew this and did not doubt it in the least, then why do there exist contradictory narrations from them that disagree on important details in their accounts? For example, some of them say that only ʿAlī could deliver the proclamation of repudiation, while others indicate that Abū Bakr helped him, and others still say that Abū Hurayra and other unnamed persons assisted with this. Some say that there were nine verses, while others say ten, and others still say sixteen, or thirty, or thirty-three, or thirty-seven, or forty, or the entirety of the chapter.

Furthermore, accounts differ about what Abū Bakr did when ʿAlī took the verses from him. Some say that Abū Bakr continued on his way as the leader of Hajj, while others say that he came back, which has forced some commentators such as Ibn Kathīr to attempt to reconcile this by saying he only returned after the pilgrimage was completed. But then, other accounts said that he came back to the Prophet to ask why he was relieved of his duty. In the narration of Anas that we shall consider below, the Prophet reportedly sent Abū Bakr with Sūrah Barāʾa, only to recall him and take the verses from him.

Then there are reports that disagree on the day on which this announcement took place. Some say that the Hajj took place in the month of Dhū al-Ḥijja and that the Greater Day of the Pilgrimage refers to all the days of the pilgrimage, or to the Day of ʿArafa, or to the Day of Slaughter, or to the day after the Day of Slaughter, or to other days entirely. Then there are accounts that say Abū Bakr performed the pilgrimage that year in Dhū al-Qaʿda.

18:50What about the four months grace period? Some reports say that this began in Shawwāl, others say it began in Dhū al-Qaʿda, while others say it began on the tenth of Dhū al-Ḥijja, and others still say it began on the eleventh of that month, and there are more reports and dates besides this. Some of these say the grace period corresponded to the pre-Islamic forbidden months of Dhū al-Qaʿda, Dhū al-Ḥijja, and Muḥarram, while others still say that it began on the day the message was delivered or on the day it was sent down by God.

This is the state of disagreement between these narrations. With this in mind, how can anyone claim that anything about this was known to everyone, the experts and the laity alike? Bear in mind also that some of these explanations given above, even if they are statements from early commentators, the statements of early commentators are no different in practice from traditions with incomplete chains of narration, and they should be treated as such.

Now, let us address the claim in Tafsīr al-Manār that ‘the truth is that ʿAlī was charged with conveying a specific message but, on that pilgrimage, he went as a follower of Abū Bakr, who was the leader of the Hajj.’ There is no doubt that when the Prophet entrusted ʿAlī with delivering the verses of Barāʾa and the other four proclamations mentioned above, this was a special task. Recall, previously, that when Gabriel revealed to the Prophet, ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself,’ he did not specify that this was in relation to the verses of repudiation. Therefore, we should not mix up the meaning of Gabriel’s statement with the specific mission given to ʿAlī on that journey.

As for the claim that ʿAlī was under Abū Bakr’s authority on that pilgrimage, this is something he has deduced from the account of Abū Hurayra. However, we have already highlighted the problems with his retelling of events. (16) In al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is narrated from Ibn Abī Shayba, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and al-Tirmidhī and deemed reliable by Abū al-Shaykh and Ibn Mardawayh from Anas: ‘The Prophet sent the repudiation with Abū Bakr, then he recalled him and said: “It does not behove anyone to convey this except a man from my own family (min ahlī),” so he called ʿAlī and gave it to him.’

Author’s comments: Rashīd Riḍā—the author of Tafsīr al-Manār— argues that his statement, ‘or a man from myself,’ found in the narration of al-Sudayy, has been explained by other narrations in al-Ṭabarī and elsewhere, such as the phrase ‘or a man from my household (min ahl baytī).’ This, he says, refutes the claim that the phrase ‘from myself’ (minnī) means that the soul of ʿAlī is like the soul of God’s Messenger, or that he is akin to him, or that he is superior to all of the other Companions.

18:51The narrations he is referring to are those which he previously cited: ‘And Aḥmad narrates with a reliable chain of narrators from Anas: “The Prophet sent the repudiation with Abū Bakr, but when he reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfa, he said: ‘None can convey this except a man from my own family (min ahlī),’ so he sent ʿAlī with them instead.”’ As you can see, this is almost identical to the narration from Anas we have already quoted above and—both contain the phrase ‘or a man from my own family’—and even where there are disparities in the wording, the meaning is essentially the same.

However, the problems with Rashīd Riḍā’s claims are as follows:

First, the phrase ‘or a man from myself’ (aw rajul minnī) only occurs in a single version of the tradition, with an incomplete (mawqūf) chain of narrators, namely the narration of al-Sudayy which he has already criticized as weak (ḍaʿīf). Instead, the phrase ‘or a man from yourself’ (aw rajul minka) was used in the revelation from Gabriel that is recorded in the majority of the authentic narrations. Rashīd Riḍā further claims that the Prophet used the phrase ‘a man from my household’ (min ahl baytī) in many narrations when, in fact, there is only the single narration from Anas that uses this phrasing. Even then, it uses the word ahl (family) rather than ahl bayt (household).

Second, these narrations—as has become clear—have been transmitted by meaning rather than by words. Therefore, you cannot use their vocabulary to explain the wording of Gabriel’s revelation that is recorded in the majority of authentic accounts of this event found in both Sunnī and Shīʿa collections of traditions.

Therefore, if the phrase min ahl baytī (from my household) was suitable to explain the phrases rajul minka (a man from yourself) or rajul minnī (a man from myself), then the same rule would apply to this narration and all of the other narrations with regard to the aforementioned narration from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī. In it, the Prophet says: ‘O ʿAlī, none can deliver this on my behalf except me or you.’ Therefore, can this not be adduced to explain the meaning of Anas’ narration ‘except a man from my household’ or ‘except a man from my family,’ and the other narrations as well, ‘except a man from yourself,’ and ‘except a man from myself.’ In which case, all of these phrases can be interpreted as references not only to the person of ʿAlī as being the only person suitable for the task at hand, but also to the idea that the soul of ʿAlī is like the soul (nafs) of the Prophet, as well as being from his family (ahl) and his household (ahl bayt). Therefore, by making this claim, Rashīd Riḍā ends up with precisely what he had hoped to avoid, and even more.

18:52Third, the idea that ʿAlī is in the position of the Prophet’s self or soul (nafs) is not based solely on this one tradition and the phrase ‘rajul minnī,’ as Rashīd Riḍā seems to suppose. After all, if someone was to say: ‘so-and-so is from myself’ (fulān minnī), this would not imply that they considered this person to be like themselves in every aspect of their existence and a resemblance of them. On the contrary, such a statement would only indicate that there was some connection between them and that the other person shared some similarities with them. For example, look at Abraham’s statement: So whoever follows me is indeed from me (14:36). This is unless, of course, there is some contextual indication that the speaker intends a closer connection than this, for example, as we find in the verse: Any of you who allies with them is indeed one of them (5:51).

On the contrary, it is not understood merely from the phrase ‘a man from myself’ or ‘a man from yourself,’ but from the fact that this appears alongside the injunction: ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you.’ Now, based on what we have already said, if Gabriel had said: ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from your family’ or ‘a man from your household,’ then we would deduce the same significance that we deduce from ‘No one can deliver it on your behalf except you or a man from yourself’ or ‘No one can deliver it on my behalf except me or a man from myself.’ This is in addition to the fact that he explains his decision to Abū Bakr using this phrase, when Abū Bakr could be seen as being ‘from himself’ by virtue of the fact that Abū Bakr was one of his followers.²

Fourth, Rashīd Riḍā neglects the abundant—or successively narrated (mutawātir)—authentic traditions that indicate that the Prophet’s Household are ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan, and al-Ḥusayn, as we have already mentioned in our commentary on the Verse of Mubāhila and as we shall discuss in greater detail in our treatment of the Verse of Purification (Āyat al-Taṭhīr).

At the time Sūrah Barāʾa was revealed, then, there was no man in the Prophet’s Household except ʿAlī, which would mean that no matter which of these phrases was used (‘a man from myself,’ ‘a man from my family,’ or ‘a man from my household’), it was intended as an allusion to Imām ʿAlī. This leaves us with the same conclusion as above.

18:53Rashīd Riḍā seems to believe that the phrase ‘from my household’ (min ahl baytī) is of broad scope, encompassing all of the Prophet’s relatives from the Banū Hāshim or from the Banū Hāshim and his womenfolk. In interpreting it in this manner, he renders it an ordinary term and removes any special distinction from being conferred upon the members of the Prophet’s Household. With this in mind, the meaning of the statement becomes ‘no one can annul the treaty on my behalf except a man from the Banū Hāshim.’ However, this reading depends upon us looking only at the meaning of these words in everyday language, rather than considering their significance within the framework of the religion. We have already discussed this in relation to the words ibn (son) and bint (daughter) when debating whether the son of a man’s daughter can also be called his son by extension. There are those who base their argument purely on the conventions of language, namely whether or not the standard usage of the language allows such a claim. However, this represents a confusion between the two realms of vocabulary and meaning, or between social conventions and divine religious ones, as we have already explained elsewhere.

However, possibly the strangest claim that Rashīd Riḍā makes is that the tradition he cites is an explicit and unambiguous (naṣṣ) refutation of the Shīʿī understanding of the phrase ‘from myself’ (minnī). In other words, he believes that the phrase ‘from my household’ (min ahl baytī) explicitly and unambiguously shows that the meaning of ‘from myself’ means ‘from the Banū Hāshim.’ However, we have no idea from whence he produces the claim that the phrase ahl al-bayt explicitly and unambiguously denotes the Banū Hāshim. After all, there are countless narrations to the effect that the ahl al-bayt of the Prophet are ʿAlī and Fāṭima and their two sons al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. How then, can he assert that ‘my household’ (ahl baytī) refers to the Banū Hāshim as a whole and then, from that, claim that ‘from myself’ also refers to the Banū Hāshim as a whole? This is an utterly untenable thesis.

(17) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Zurāra, Ḥumrān, and Muḥammad ibn Muslim from Imām al-Bāqir and Imām al-Ṣādiq about the verse Travel in the land for four months (9:2): ‘The last twenty days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, the months of Muḥarram, Ṣafar, and Rabīʿ al-Awwal, then the first ten days of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar.’

18:54Author’s comments: There are countless narrations in Shīʿī collections from the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household to the effect that this is what the phrase four months in the aforementioned verse. This is narrated by al-Kulaynī, al-Ṣadūq, al-ʿAyyāshī, al-Qummī, and others in their works. It has also been narrated in Sunnī collections. However, Sunnīs narrate other traditions that contradict this interpretation, including some which claim that Abū Bakr performed the pilgrimage with the people in the year 9 A.H. during the month of Dhū al-Qaʿda. However, these are unsubstantiated, so we have omitted them. (18) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Ḥakīm ibn Jubayr, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, concerning the verse, And an announcement from Allah and His Messenger (9:3): ‘An announcement by the Commander of the Faithful.’

Author’s comments: This meaning has also been narrated by Ḥurayz from Imām al-Ṣādiq, and by Jābir from both him and Imām al-Bāqir. Al-Qummī narrates a tradition from his father, from Faḍḍāla, from Abān ibn ʿUthmān, from Ḥakīm ibn Jubayr, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, in which he relates the following words of Imām ʿAlī: ‘I was the one who delivered the announcement to the people.’ Al-Ṣadūq transmits the same via a chain of narrators going back to Ḥakīm from him. It is narrated in al-Durr al-Manthūr from Ibn Abī Ḥātim, from Ḥaīm ibn Ḥamīd, from ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn. In Tafsīr al-Burhān, we read: ‘Al-Sudayy and Abū Mālik and Ibn ʿAbbās and Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn say: “The announcement was delivered by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.”’ (19) Also in Tafsīr al-Burhān, it is narrated via al-Ṣadūq, via his chain of narrators from al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿAyyāḍ, from Imām al-Ṣādiq. Al-Fuḍayl asked him asked about the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage (9:3). He responded: ‘Do you know anything about it?’ The narrator replied: ‘Yes, Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: The Day of the Greater Pilgrimage is the Day of ʿArafa until sunrise on the Day of Slaughter, meaning that whoever participated in the Day of ʿArafa had participated in the Hajj, but that whoever missed it had missed the Hajj. Therefore, it goes from the eve of ʿArafa until the end of the night that follows it. The evidence for that is that whoever reaches the eve of the Day of Slaughter before sunrise is said to have reached Hajj on time. Therefore, the eve of the Day of Slaughter is considered part of the Day of ʿArafa.’

Then Imām al-Ṣādiq said: ‘The Commander of the Faithful said, “The Day of the Greater Pilgrimage is the Day of Slaughter.” And he supported this with God’s saying: Travel in the land for four months, which is the last twenty days of Dhū al-Ḥijja, the months of Muḥarram, Ṣafar, and Rabīʿ al-Awwal, then the first ten days of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar. If The Day of the Greater Pilgrimage was the Day of ʿArafa, then the idolaters would have been given four months and a day to travel in the land. He further supported this with the passage, and an announcement from Allah and His Messenger to the people on the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage, saying: “I was the one who delivered the announcement to the people.”’

18:55Al-Fuḍayl asked: ‘Then what is the meaning of this phrase, the Greater Pilgrimage (al-Ḥajj al-Akbar)?’ He replied: ‘It is only called “greater” because it took place in the only year in which both the Muslims and the idolaters made the pilgrimage. The idolaters did not perform the Hajj in following years.’

(20) In the same source it is narrated from him, via his chain of narrators leading to Muʿāwiya ibn ʿAmmār, who related: ‘I asked Abū ʿAbdallāh about the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage. He said: “The Day of Slaughter and the lesser ʿumra.”’

Author’s comments: In addition to associating the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage with the Day of Slaughter, the above narration also explains why it was called the Day of the “Greater” Pilgrimage. All of the narrations of the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household, barring those which are irregular (shādhdh), say that the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage mentioned in the verse was a reference to the Day of Slaughter, which fell on the tenth of Dhū al-Ḥijja. They narrate this from Imām ʿAlī.

Al-Kulaynī narrates this tradition in al-Kāfī from ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm, from his father, from Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from Muʿāwiya ibn ʿAmmār, from Imām al-Ṣādiq. He also narrates it via Dhurayḥ from him, as does Shaykh al-Ṣadūq. Al-ʿAyyāshī narrates it from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ibn Udhayna, and al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿAyyāḍ, from him as well.

(21) In al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is narrated from Ibn Mardawayh, from Ibn Abī Awfā, from the Prophet, that he said on ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā: ‘This is the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage.’

(22) In the same source, al-Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Māja, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn al-Mundhir, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Abū Shaykh, Ibn Mardawayh, and Abū Muʿaym in al-Ḥilya narrate from Ibn ʿUmar that the Messenger of God stood on the Day of Slaughter between the stone pillars (jamārāt) while he performed his Hajj pilgrimage and asked of those assembled: ‘What is today?’ They responded: ‘It is the Day of Slaughter.’ He said: ‘Today is the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage.’ Author’s comments: This has been narrated via various routes from ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās, Mughīra ibn Shuʿba, Abū Juḥayfa, and ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Awfā. It has also been narrated by various routes from the Prophet that it is the Day of ʿArafa. This has also been narrated from ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn al-Zubayr. Meanwhile, it is narrated from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab that it the day after the Day of Slaughter. It has also been narrated that it is all the days of the pilgrimage, and that it is the pilgrimage in the year that Abū Bakr performed the Hajj. The latter most of these reports is compatible with the tradition reported from Imām al-Ṣādiq, above, in which he said that it was called the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage because it was the year in which the idolaters and the Muslims both made the pilgrimage.

18:56(23) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Zurāra, from Imām al-Bāqir, concerning the verse, Then, when the sacred months have passed, kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them and besiege them (9:5): ‘(The period of grace) lasted from the Day of Slaughter to the tenth of Rabīʿ al-Ākhar.

(24) In al-Durr al-manthūr, about the verse, Yet if they repent, and maintain the prayer and give the zakāt (9:5), al-Ḥākim narrates and deems authentic a tradition from Muʿab ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father: ‘The Messenger of God conquered Mecca, then he went to Ṭāʾif and besieged it for seven or eight consecutive days, then he besieged it alternatively. Then he addressed the inhabitants: “O people, I shall leave this world before you, so I enjoin you to treat my progeny well, your tryst (with me) is at the Pool of Paradise. By He in whose hand is my soul, you will maintain the prayer and pay the zakāt or I shall send upon you a man from myself or like unto myself, and he will strike the necks of your fighters and take captive their progeny.” People thought that he was referring to Abū Bakr or ʿUmar, but then he took the hand of ʿAlī and said: “I will send this one.”’ Author’s comments: He was referring to the disbelievers.

(25) In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, a tradition narrated by Jābir from Imām al-Bāqir reads: ‘Yet if they repent means: “If they believe, then they are your brethren in faith.”’

(26) In Tafsīr al-Qummī, about the verse If any of the polytheists seeks asylum from you, grant him asylum (9:6), we read: ‘It means you should recite the Qur’an to him and inform him (about the religion), then you should not aggress against him until he has returned to his place of safety.’

18:57(27) In Tafsīr al-Burhān, it is narrated from Ibn Shahrāshūb, from the Tafsīr of al-Qushayrī that a man said to ʿAlī: ‘O Son of Abū Ṭālib! What if one of us wants to meet the Messenger of God concerning some matter after these four months have concluded and he does not have a treaty?’ ʿAlī said: ‘Of course (he can), because God has said If any of the polytheists seeks asylum from you, grant him asylum (9:6).’ (28) In Durr al-Manthūr, about the verse But if they break their pledges after their having made a treaty (9:12), it is narrated from Ibn Abī Shayba and Ibn Abī Ḥātim and Abū al-Shaykh and Ibn Mardawayh from Ḥudhayfa: that they mentioned this verse to him and he said: ‘The people this verse refers to have not yet been fought.’

(29) In the same source, it is narrated from Ibn Abī Shayba, al-Bukhārī, and Ibn Mardawayh, from Zayd ibn Wahb, concerning the verse, then fight the leaders of unfaith (9:12): ‘We were with Ḥudhayfa and he said: “Of the ones referred to by this verse, only three remain, and of the hypocrites, only four.” A Bedouin asked: “You are the Companions of Muḥammad, will you inform us of those matters of which we are unaware? Who are the ones who raid our tends and steal our cattle?” He said: “They are the sinners (fussāq). Yes, only four of them remain. One of them is an old man who if he drank cool water he would not taste its coolness.”’

(30) In his Qurb al-Isnād, al-Ḥimyarī narrates from ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd and ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Muḥammad, both from Ḥanān ibn Sudayr, who said: ‘I head Abū ʿAbdallāh (al-Ṣādiq) say: “I was visited by people from Basra. They asked me about Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr. I told them: ‘They were leaders of unfaith. At the Battle of Basra, after he had arrayed his cavalry, ʿAlī said to his companions: “Do not hasten to fight these people until I have exhausted all options between myself, between God, and between them.”

‘“‘So, he stood up in front of them and said: “O people of Basra! Do you find ʿAlī to be a tyrant?” They said: “No.” He asked: “Then a breaker of oaths?” They said: “No.” He said: “Then a man greedy for worldly wealth such that he has monopolized it for himself and his family and denied it to you, so that you have betrayed ʿAlī and broken your oath of allegiance to him?” They said: “No.” He said: “Then did I punish you for crimes for which I pardoned others?” They said: “No.” He said: “Then why did you break your oath of allegiance to me but not to any others? I have looked at this from every side, but I find nothing except disbelief or the sword.”

18:58‘“‘Then ʿAlī turned to his companions and said: “Surely God— Blessed and Exalted!—has said in His Book: But if they break their pledges after their having made a treaty and revile your religion, then fight the leaders of unfaith—indeed they have no pledges—maybe they will relinquish.” Then the Commander of the Faithful said: “By He who split the seed, brought forth the creatures, and chose Muḥammad for prophethood, they are the ones about whom this verse was revealed, and they have not been fought since this verse was revealed.”’”’

Author’s comments: Al-ʿAyyāshī also narrates this from Ḥanān ibn Sudayr from Imām al-Ṣādiq.

(31) In his Amālī, al-Mufīd narrates via a chain of narrators from Abū ʿUthmān, the muezzin of Banū Quṣayy. He said: ‘I heard ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s speech when Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr rebelled against him. He said: “God has excused me with regard to Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr. They pledged allegiance to me willingly and without compulsion, then they broke their pledge of allegiance to me without any justification.” Then he recited the verse: But if they break their pledges after their having made a treaty and revile your religion, then fight the leaders of unfaith—indeed they have no pledges—maybe they will relinquish.’ Author’s comments: A similar account is also narrated by al-ʿAyyāshī in his Tafsīr from Abū ʿUthmān the Muezzin, Abū al-Ṭufayl, and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Shaykh al-Ṭūsī also narrates this from Abū ʿUthmān the Muezzin in his Amālī. In his tradition, Bakīr says: ‘I asked Abū Jaʿfar (al-Bāqir) about this. He said: “The shaykh has spoken truthfully. This is what ʿAlī said. This is how it was.”’

(32) In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Ibn Isḥāq and al-Bayhaqī in his Dalāʾil narrate from Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam and al-Masrūr ibn Makhrama: ‘In the peace treaty signed between the Messenger of God and the Quraysh on the Day of Ḥudaybiyya, it was stipulated that whoever wished to make a treaty or alliance with the Prophet was free to do so, and whoever wanted to make a treaty or alliance with the Quraysh was free to do so. The Khuzāʿa hastened forth and said: “We will make an alliance with Muḥammad.” Then the Banū Bakr hastened forth and said: “We will make an alliance with the Quraysh.” And this peace endured for about seventeen or eighteen months.

18:59‘Then, the Banū Bakr, who were allies of the Quraysh, launched an attack by night on the Khuzāʿa, who were allies of God’s Messenger, at a well that belonged to them in the vicinity of Mecca known as al-Watīr. The Quraysh imagined that God’s Messenger would not know what had happened under the cover of dark, so they supplied the Bakr with weapons and mounts and, because of the hatred they had towards the Prophet, they even participated directly in the attack on al-Watīr.

‘ʿAmr ibn Sālim rode to Medina with news of what had happened at al-Watīr and addressed the Messenger of God with the following verses of poetry:

“O Lord, I implore Muḥammad / by the oath of our father and his of old,

You were are sons for whom we provided the mother / then we submitted and never withdrew our hand,

So help us, God guide you / and call God’s servants to our aid,

Among them the Messenger of God, sword-drawn / when he is wronged his face becomes overcast with anger,

In a great army heaving like the sea / surely the Quraysh have broken their promise to you,

And they have violated their solemn oath to you / and they tried to prevent me from warning you,

They claim that I will find no one to help us / and they are but a miserable few,

They attacked us by night in al-Watīr / and killed us as we bowed and prostrated.”

‘So the Messenger of God said: “We will come to your aid, O ʿAmr ibn Sālim.” Then, a cloud appeared in the sky and he said: “This cloud shall witness (our) assistance to the Banū Kaʿb.” Then he ordered the people to muster for war (jihād) and to keep their departure a secret. He invoked God and asked Him to blind the Quraysh to his movements so that they might catch them by surprise in their homeland.’ Author’s comments: This narration is reported in al-Durr al-Manthūr, along with accounts from Mujāhid and ʿIkrima about the Quraysh’s violation of the treaty of Ḥudaybiyya and their support for the Banū Bakr against the Messenger of God’s allies the Khuzāʿa. They say that this was the occasion of revelation (sabab al-nuzūl) for the verses Will you not make war on a people who broke their pledges… and heal the hearts of a faithful folk (9:13–14). The ‘faithful folk’ in this instance are the Khuzāʿa.

18:60If this is indeed accurate, then this would mean that the verse Will you not make war on a people who broke their pledges… and the three subsequent verses (9:13–16) were, in fact, revealed prior to the conquest of Mecca and, therefore, before the verses of repudiation.

However, regarding the account narrated by Ibn Isḥāq and al-Bayhaqī, even if we treat it as authentic because it is narrated by al-Masrūr ibn Makhrama, al-Masrūr’s narration does not explicitly state that the verses in question were revealed in response to this event. Neither can we rely on the account from Mujāhid and ʿIkrima both because it has an incomplete chain of narrators and because the context of these verses does not lend credence to the idea that they were revealed before the conquest of Mecca. These verses are clearly connected to the verses from the beginning of the chapter and thus were revealed at the same time.

As for the verse, who broke their pledges and resolved to expel the Messenger, and opened against you initially, even if the description it contains is especially apt for the Quraysh, it could equally apply to the Quraysh’s allies and neighbors who had not yet converted following the conquest of Mecca. Therefore, because of their solidarity with the Quraysh and relationship with them, the verse ascribes to them the same attributes as the Quraysh originally had.

Know also that there are various narrations in Shīʿī sources from the Prophet’s Household that apply these verses to the circumstances surrounding the advent of Imām al-Mahdi. However, this is an example of extending the meaning of the verses to a new context (al-jarī).

On the Meaning of ‘Treaty’ (ʿahd), its Types, and Some of its Rules

At the beginning of the sixth volume of this work, we touched on the meaning of the terms ʿaqd (agreement) and ʿahd (treaty). Hence, we will begin by recapitulating what was previously stated, before discussing the various types of treaty and the rules pertaining to them in a new format divided into a number of sections.

First: On the origins of contracts in general

From the many discussions we have presented in this work so far, it should be clear to the reader that, over the course of his life, the human being always conceives of his actions and the material things that they are related to as actually existing objective realities and represents them as such. As such, he applies the same rules to them as he applies to objective reality, such as the universal laws that govern the cosmos, in a manner that accords with his aims in life. For example, he might take a series of distinct units of sound, such as z, y, and d, and combine them in a specific form to produce the word zayd. He then posits that zayd refers to a human being who exists in objective reality and names him ‘Zayd.’ Then, whenever he wants to evoke the thought of this person in the mind of a listener, he utters the word ‘Zayd’ to him. Therefore, this word becomes a representation of the real being Zayd for him and, in doing this, he achieves his goal.

18:61And when a person wishes to bring about some action that can only be performed by a group of people working together, then he will assemble a group and conceive of them as one body. Then, he will choose one of them to perform the role in relation to the rest of the group as the head does for the rest of the body, and he calls this person ‘the head’ of the group. At the same he conceives of the remainder of the group’s members as the limbs of this body, referring to them as ‘members’ (member is an archaic term for ‘limb’ in English, just as the Arabic term ʿaḍuww can signify both the member of a group and a limb of a body). Then, he applies the same rules to the head of the group in the same way as he would to the head of a body, and likewise the same rules to the members of the group as he would to the limbs of a body.

With proper analysis, it is evident that all human ideas about society devolve to this, whether directly or through the mediation of other concepts and arguments. The same is true of the human being’s personal thoughts with regard to his behavior and actions.

The human being treats making contracts, fulfilling agreements, and everything that pertains to oaths, vows, and pledges with the utmost seriousness. The primary reason for this is that the human being’s overriding priority is to preserve his life, attain his goals, and secure the happiness that flows from his life taking its proper course.

So, whenever the human being attains something that he desires and gains power over it, he begins to enjoy it however is most appropriate, such as eating, drinking, and other such things, with the faculties of enjoyment with which he has been endowed. Likewise, he removes any obstacles to this enjoyment that he encounters on his way and believes that he is only able to accomplish this because of the power he has been granted.

One of the tools with which the human being has been furnished is his intellectual capital, through which he is able to plan his life, improve his livelihood, complete his work today, and make preparations for his work tomorrow. His actions, which are either directly concerned with acting upon matter or ultimately devolve to this, are entirely dependent upon the extent of his power to act and his possession of everything that he needs in order to act. However, these actions also differ from one another in that some of them can be accomplished with little effort and in minimal time. For example, a hungry person comes upon some food and eats it. This does not require any power greater than the amount of time it takes to perform the act, nor does such an act require any preparations to be made or preliminary steps to be followed.

18:62By contrast, the overwhelming majority of human social activities require considerable power to be expended in order to be realized, both at the time of their performance, as well as both before and, in some cases, even afterwards. This is because these acts have preliminary steps that must be traversed and preparations that must be made in advance of their coming to be. Very little of what the human being does in life is by accident. On the contrary, most matters of human existence require the ground to be prepared in order for them to come into being at the desired time.

One aspect of this preparation is to obtain and organise all of the necessary means for an action, and another is to remove any obstacles that might stand in its way. In short, the human being will not succeed in an action or see the results of his efforts unless he has ensured that all of the necessary ingredients for success are present and all of the barriers and impediments to it have been removed.

It is the realization of this truth that leads the human being to turn to his compatriots in order to ensure his own success, whether by seeking assistance from them to obtain the necessary ingredients for his success or ensuring that they will not act to thwart his efforts or prevent him from removing the barriers that stand before him.

For example, if a person is in need of clothes—even relatively simple garments made from a plain material such as cotton or wool—attaining this goal depends on numerous intermediary steps: Someone must spin the cotton or wool into thread, which someone must then weave into fabric, which someone must then tailor into clothes. And the spinner, the weaver, and the tailor all depend on someone to manufacture the tools they use in their respective trades. Without all of these steps being fulfilled, this person will not manage to find a set of clothes. Therefore, he needs his compatriots to help him in achieving his goal by wedding their efforts to his and not leaving him to his own devices, or else he will never succeed.

Equally, someone who wishes to settle on some land or take up residence in some house will not be able to reach his new home or live in it unless people allow him to pass and do not prevent him from doing with his home as he sees fit.

18:63It is these needs and requirements that lead the human being to recognise the importance of making agreements and signing contracts with others, as this allows him to join his actions to the actions of others in the same way as one connects two pieces of rope with one knot. These agreements also require him to act reciprocally by helping others achieve their goals through fulfilling his side of the agreement and not interfering with their activities.

This is the foundation upon which all the contracts and agreements concluded between people rest, including marriage, commerce, and the like thereof. These are both contracts and an example of covenants in a general sense, because the general meaning of a covenant is that a person should give a promise or a written contract to the effect that they will perform a certain beneficial action for the other party or that they will not hinder them from undertaking a certain action, whether for a specified period of time or indefinitely.

This general meaning of covenant or agreement is the focus of our present discussion and not specific forms of agreements with special names such as contracts of sale, marriage contracts, or other transactions, because this kind of agreement is not relevant to the subject we wish to address here. This is because each of them have their own specific rules and legal effects in different human societies. Instead, we want to discuss the general concept of a covenant, in the sense of an agreement one human makes with another to help or not to hinder them in various social goals, and the implications of this for human existence. For example, if one person agrees to pay another a specified sum of money annually in order to help him obtain certain needs or in exchange for certain benefits. Alternatively, he might agree not to interfere with his work or prevent him from attaining a specified goal for a certain period of time, or indefinitely. These sorts of agreements are not broken unless one of the two parties breaks them or unless both parties agree to set them aside.

Perhaps, in addition to signing an agreement, a person might also swear an oath. This means that the party in question links this agreement to something he considers sacred and inviolable, as if he is assigning the same sanctity and inviolability to the agreement itself. In this way, he provides a guarantee that he will fulfil his responsibilities as stipulated by the agreement, or else he robs the object of his oath of its sanctity and respect. One might say: ‘By God, I will not betray you,’ or ‘by my life, I will support you,’ or ‘I swear that I will come to your aid.’ In uttering such an oath, the person agrees that if they break their oath, it is as though they have voided the sanctity of their Lord, the sanctity of their life, or the sanctity of their honor.

18:64Or perhaps a covenant or agreement might be sealed through a pledge, whereby one party places his hand in the hand of another, symbolizing that he has given him the hand with which he will perform the act. In other words, he will not do anything that the other party dislikes, because he has placed his hand in theirs.

Second: The need of societies for contracts and agreements

These agreements and covenants are needed by both human beings and human societies alike, as a society is nothing more than a collection of individuals. Therefore, the life of a society is the sum of the lives of its members, and the actions of a society are the sum of the activities of its members. Equally, good and evil, benefit and harm, health and disease, progress and growth, uprightness and deviance, happiness and misery, and, ultimately, survival and collapse, all depend on the sum of these individuals.

Therefore, society is a macro-person, with similar needs and goals as the individuals that constitute its body politic. This means that the relationship between one society and another is akin to the relationship between one person and another. In securing these goals and engaging in activities, a society has similar needs to the human being in terms of security and safety. In fact, a society’s needs for these things are even more acute than that of an individual, because the greater the agent, the greater the goal, and the greater the action needed to obtain it. Therefore, a society requires safety and security from its members lest it disintegrate or collapse, and it needs safety and security from other rival societies.

As the history of past nations and peoples has shown, and as we can ourselves observe from the condition of the nations of our own time, it is the nature of all human societies to form agreements with other societies in order to meet their political, economic, cultural and other needs. This is because no society can grow or develop except through cooperation with others like it and the absence of opposition from them.

Third: The validity of treaties in Islam and the obligation to respect them

Islam aims to reform the social life of human beings just as it aims to reform their individual lives. Therefore, it provides general laws addressing the collective life of human beings, such as the laws of jihād, defence, and fighting against aggressors and treaty breakers, as well as laws about peace, treaties, and agreements.

The kind of treaty that we are discussing at present is one that Islam has endorsed fully and without qualification. As such, violating it without justification is considered one of the gravest sins imaginable, unless of course one side has already violated it and the other is merely responding in kind. In the Qur’an, God orders people to uphold their agreements and contracts and condemns those who violate them in the strongest possible terms. He says: O you who have faith! Keep your agreements (5:1); But as for those who break Allah’s compact after having pledged it solemnly… it is such on whom the curse will lie, and for them will be the ills of the (ultimate) abode (13:25); and fulfil the covenants; indeed all covenants are accountable (17:34), and more besides.

18:65God has not permitted the breaking of treaties or agreements except where there is a valid justification. For example, if one side violates a treaty through aggression or wrongdoing, or if it is likely to be violated because they have put it aside, then there is no problem with likewise disregarding the treaty, nor is this blameworthy. God says: And if you fear treachery from a people, break off with them in a like manner. Indeed Allah does not like the treacherous (8:58). Therefore, God permits the breaking of a treaty when one fears the treachery of the other side. However, He requires that the Muslims inform the other side of the treaty’s termination and does not permit them to launch a surprise attack: break off with them in a like manner. It is obligatory to inform them that the treaty has been revoked to avoid being accused of perfidious behavior.

He says: A repudiation by Allah and His Messenger to the polytheists with whom you had made a treaty: Travel in the land for four months (9:1–2). Notice also that God does not simply repudiate the treaty but gives them a period of grace in which to consider their situation and decide on what course of action they would like to take. If they wish, they can believe and be saved, or if they do not, they can be fought and destroyed. One of the positive effects of giving the Arab idolaters a deadline was that they chose to believe rather than fight.

And God completes this grace towards them by issuing the following ordinance after the repudiation: If any of the polytheists seeks asylum from you, grant him asylum until he hears the Word of Allah. Then convey him to his place of safety. That is because they are a people who do not know (9:6).

He also exempts those who have adhered faithfully to their treaties: How shall the polytheists have any treaty with Allah and His Messenger?! (Barring those with whom you made a treaty at the Holy Mosque; so long as they are steadfast with you, be steadfast with them. Indeed Allah loves the Godwary). How? For if they get the better of you, they will observe toward you neither kinship nor covenant. They please you with their mouths while their hearts spurn you; and most of them are transgressors (9:7–8). Notice that God explains why the Muslims should be steadfast with those idolaters who are steadfast with them—because this is part of Godwariness (taqwā), which is the very essence of that to which the religion of Islam is calling mankind, for God loves those who are Godwary. This rationale for upholding treaties is not bound to a particular context but remains valid until the Day of Judgement.

18:66God also says: So should anyone aggress against you, assail him in the manner he assailed you (2:194), and Ill feeling for a people should not lead you, because they barred you from (entering) the Holy Mosque, to transgress. Cooperate in piety and Godwariness, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression, and be wary of Allah (5:2).

As for being the first to violate a treaty without the other side providing any justification for this, this is forbidden in the upright religion. We have already encountered the verses of the Qur’an: so long as they are steadfast with you, be steadfast with them and but do not transgress. Indeed Allah does not like transgressors (2:190).

These were the principles that guided the actions of the Prophet throughout his life. He made a treaty with the Banū Qaynuqāʿ, the Banū Qurayẓa, and other Jewish tribes, and he did not violate the protocols of those treaties except after the other side did so first. He made a treaty with the Quraysh at Ḥudaybiyya and he did not break this treaty until they broke it by supporting the Banū Bakr against the Khuzāʿa, who were allies of the Prophet, while the Banū Bakr were allies of the Quraysh.

As for violating the terms of a treaty without the other side violating them first, there is no justification for this in Islam, even if adhering to the treaty is prejudicial to the interests of the Muslims or exposes them to some harm, even if they are able to defend their interests with force or can find some excuse to circumvent their agreements in such a way that they will not be subject to blame or reproach. However, Islam has not allowed them to act in such a way, for the criterion here is not their material interests but the truth, and the truth has only ever harmed those that strayed from it and sought something other than it.

Fourth: Comparing Islam to non-religious societies in terms of respect for treaties and agreements

Human societies, especially ones which are highly developed—albeit nonreligious—have no higher aim or purpose for coming together or following their established traditions except to enjoy the benefits of material life to the greatest degree possible. As a result, they do not need to do anything other than uphold the practical laws that facilitate their various pursuits in life.

18:67Therefore, it is clear that, in such an environment, there is no value for spiritual matters save for the extent to which they relate to and support the aims of material existence. Spiritual virtues such as honesty, chivalry, compassion, and the like thereof have no value unless they bring tangible benefits to society and so long as they do not cause any inconvenience to those in power if they do not. Therefore, there is no impetus to uphold them. In fact, the impetus is to discard them.

This is why of cial bodies and governing of cials in such societies do not believe that they have any duty or function other than to safeguard the society’s material interests. Hence, they only enter into treaties and agreements based on their current interests. They measure their own strength and needs, measure those of the other side, consider any other relevant factors, and draw up an agreement based on these calculations.

So long as these power calculations remain unchanged, the treaty will remain unchanged. However, if one side or the other gains the upper hand over the other, they will invalidate the treaty on the basis of some pretext or allegations manufactured and contrived for that purpose. Indeed, they only offer these as excuses in order to maintain the façade of adhering to international laws, and they do not see any consequences to breaking these laws worthy of consideration except those that threaten their own material interests or those of the society that they govern. Were this not the case, they would violate their agreements at the slightest excuse.

Such societies are not prevented by morality or spirituality from lying, treachery, or infringing on the other party’s rights, as none of these things hold any value to them; they only consider how to safeguard the material interests of their own society and how best to achieve its goals. And if the reader pays close attention to conflicts that occurred between different societies, both recently and in history, especially to the conflicts that are taking place in the current era, they will note that there are many treaties and agreements that have been broken in the way we have just described.

By contrast, Islam does not consider the material life of the human being to be their real life, nor does it consider the enjoyment of material benefits to be true happiness. On the contrary, it sees real life as residing in the union of matter with spirit and finds the attainment of true happiness in securing felicity in both this world and the next. Therefore, it must promulgate laws for regulating life in accordance with the human being’s God-given nature (fiṭra) and not only based on what the human being sees as profitable for himself. And it must issue a call to follow the truth and be guided by it rather than following one’s own desires and obeying the whims of the majority that are founded on their own emotions and prejudices. God says: So set your heart on the religion as a people of pure faith, the origination of Allah according to which He originated mankind. There is no altering Allah’s creation; that is the upright religion (30:30); It is He who has sent His Apostle with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it prevail over all religions, though the polytheists should be averse (9:33); Rather We have brought them the truth (23:90); Had the Truth followed their desires, the heavens and the earth would have surely fallen apart (along) with those who are in them (23:71).

18:68In order for a virtuous society to exist, it is necessary that it adopts true beliefs, virtuous morals, and good deeds together. Matter cannot suf ce without spirit, but neither can spirit survive without matter. Therefore, such a society must adhere to human virtues, whether these are materially beneficial or not, and avoid vices, whether these are materially harmful or not, because that is what it means to follow the truth. And none will truly come to harm except those who stray from the middle path or overstep the bounds of the truth.

Based on this, we can understand why God repudiates the treaty of the idolaters, because they have already repudiated it through their actions. However, His mercy also leads him to grant them four months grace and to enjoin the Muslims to uphold the treaties of those idolaters who upheld theirs, for events have weakened them to the point that they are humbled before the might of Islam. Equally, God commands His Prophet, should he fear the treachery of a people, to repudiate his treaty with them, so long as he informs them of this fact, as God does not like treachery or deceit.

On Attributing Actions to Higher Causes

About the verse, Make war on them so that Allah may punish them by your hands (9:14), we have already discussed on several occasions in this commentary how philosophical arguments show that just as phenomena can be attributed to their immediate causes (asbāb qarība), they can also be attributed to their ultimate causes (asbāb qaṣwā), which are the causes of their immediate causes. Therefore, these phenomena can be simultaneously described as the effects of these ultimate causes and as the effects of their immediate causes. For example, movement depends upon the action of a mover, and the movement of this mover depends upon its mover. This is like a series of cogs, where the first cog is moved by the second, which is moved by the third in turn.

Therefore, an action is related to the agent that caused it, but it is also related to its agent’s cause, and this second relationship is not distinct or independent from the first. This means that the immediate cause’s relationship to the higher cause is like that of a tool. In other words, it plays a purely intermediary role in bringing about the effect, in the sense that it does not act independently of its own cause, and if its cause did not exist, neither it nor its effect would exist either.

18:69However, this does not mean that the intermediary agent is unaware of what it does, or that it does not do it of its own free will and volition. On the contrary, it is a conscious agent (fāʿil shāʿir), but it did not endow itself with this consciousness. Rather, its own cause is what gave it this consciousness, as it created both the intermediary agent and its consciousness. The same is true of its free-will, but the free-willed agent did not endow itself with this. Rather, the cause that brought it into being also gave it free-will. And just as an effect depends upon a cause, even when there is neither consciousness nor freewill, it depends upon the cause of its cause in exactly the same way. Equally, a conscious or free-willed action depends upon its cause (the conscious and free-willed agent), and it depends upon the cause of its cause (which brought into being the conscious and free-willed agent) in exactly the same way.

In other words, the cause of the conscious or free-willed agent wanted the conscious or free-willed agent to produce the desired effect through its conscious action or of its own volition. Therefore, the higher cause not only desired the intermediary to perform the action, it also desired the intermediary to perform the action consciously and of its own free will. It is not the case that it merely wanted the intermediary to perform the action, whether it was of its own volition or not.

It is based on this reality that human beings proceed, according to their intuitive understanding, to attribute a phenomenon to its ultimate cause in the same way they attribute it to its immediate cause, in that it is an effect that emanates from it. One might say: ‘So-and-so built a house and dug a well,’ when it was the builder who built the house and the well-digger who dug the well. Equally, one might say: ‘The king had so-and-so lashed, and so-and-so executed, and so-and-so imprisoned, and went to war with such-and-such a people,’ when it was the scourger who delivered the whipping, the executioner who put someone to death, the gaoler who imprisoned someone, and the soldiers who went to war. One might also say: ‘X burned the clothes of Y,’ even though the clothes were burned by fire, or ‘X cured Yof his illness,’ when it was the medicine he took that cured him and X only prescribed it to him. In all of these cases, it is the order or request of the ultimate cause that is said to have brought about the action of the immediate cause, hence the action of the immediate cause is attributed to the ultimate cause. However, even though the ultimate cause did not directly perform the action, the attribution of it to him is nevertheless genuine (ḥaqīqa) and not merely figurative (majāz).

18:70Some grammarians and others argue that all of this falls within the scope of figurative speech because it is possible to negate the action from the ultimate cause. They say that the owner of the house did not lay a single brick in its construction, rather it was the builder who did this. However, they are only looking at action insofar as it emanated from its immediate cause, when it is self-evident that such direct action (mubāshara) is the function of the immediate cause, and we do not dispute this. Instead, what we are arguing is that we can conceive of this action as depending upon a higher cause as well. That is why we say that just as the immediate cause performs the act, the higher cause acts upon the immediate cause and, in doing so, causes him to perform that act.

It is this point that forces them to distinguish between different kinds of actions and attribute some of these to both the immediate and ultimate cause jointly, while assigning others to only the immediate cause who undertakes the act itself. Therefore, they say that those acts whose very concept implies direct involvement with their performance can only be ascribed to the immediate cause. For example, eating in the sense of chewing and swallowing, drinking in the sense of sipping and swallowing, or sitting down. Hence, when a master orders his servant to eat food, or drink water, or sit on a chair, one cannot say that the master ate, drank, or sat, rather one must say that the servant ate, drank, and sat. On the other hand, one can say that the master disposed of some property or gave money to someone even if he was not the one who performed the action itself.

As for the actions where the performance of the act itself and the physical movements made by the immediate cause are not of primary importance, these are attributed to both the immediate and the ultimate causes. For example, acts such as killing, imprisoning, giving life, causing death, giving, showing kindness, and treating with respect are attributed both to the immediate cause and the ultimate cause equally. In fact, it could be argued that their association with the ultimate cause is more powerful than their association with the immediate one, as if the higher cause is also higher in existence, authority, and power.

These are the fruits of philosophical discussions on this topic, which correspond to human intuitions. The Qur’an also confirms this in the clearest possible way, when God says in the aforementioned verse: Make war on them so that Allah may punish them by your hands and humiliate them, and help you against them, and heal the hearts of a faithful folk, and remove rage from their hearts (9:14–15). This attributes the punishment inflicted upon the idolaters by the hands of the faithful to God Himself, because it makes those hands God’s implements (by your hands).

18:71This is akin to the verse: Allah has created you and whatever you do (37:96), as the meaning of whatever you do either refers to the idols which they would make from stone, wood, or metal, in which case this refers to the material that the human beings have worked into idols and it attributes these works to the Creator in the same way as it does to the humans that made them; or this verse refers to the actions of human beings themselves, in which case the meaning is clear.

Another similar verse is: And who created all the kinds and made for you the ships and the cattle such as you ride (43:12), as it attributes the manufacture of ships to God, while it is evident that ships are something manufactured by men.

Note that all of this applies to actions being performed by conscious and free-willed agents. When it comes to those actions that do not depend upon either consciousness and free-will, such as involuntary actions, there are countless verses in the Qur’an (so many that we need not enumerate them, in fact) that attribute them to God Himself. For example, He is the one who revives the earth, brings forth vegetation, splits the seed, sends down rain from the skies, causes rivers to flow, sets ships in motion across the sea by His command, and so on.

There is no contradiction in any of these examples between attributing these phenomena to God and simultaneously attributing them to other natural agents and causes. This is because these different causes are arranged vertically and in sequence rather than horizontally and in parallel, so it is not as though God and other causes are acting on these phenomena independently of one another. Instead, God is acting upon these phenomena through these intermediate causes, and therefore there is no problem with identifying multiple causes for them.

As we have seen in our previous discussions, materialists find it dif cult to understand how theists can attribute phenomena such as floods, earthquakes, and disease epidemics to God while today we know that there are natural causes for all of these. This stems from their confusion of a vertical hierarchy of causes with a horizontal array of them. They imagine that attributing such phenomena to natural causes refutes the contents of the Qur’an and the beliefs of the theists, who attribute such phenomena to the First Cause, to whom all matters ultimately return.

18:72At the same time, the Ashʿarī and Muʿtazilī theologians have a strange debate about the meaning of the previous verse, Make war on them so that Allah may punish them by your hands (9:14), and other verses like it. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī has discussed this at length in his Tafsīr, and we will summarize it below.

According to al-Rāzī, the Ashʿarīs claim that the verse, Make war on them so that Allah may punish them by your hands, shows that human actions are created by God and that, therefore, human beings do not have free-will but are predetermined in their deeds. This is because the verse makes clear that God is the one who will punish the idolaters through killing some of them and wounding others with the hands of the faithful. This shows that the hands of the faithful are no different to the swords and spears that they wield; they are mere instruments with no say in the matter. It is God who acts and the acquisition of these acts (kasb), which is the criterion for moral responsibility (taklīf) is, therefore, an empty term.

What is more, this verse provides a stronger basis for the predestinarian thesis than the verse and you did not throw when you threw, rather it was Allah who threw (8:17), as this verse attributes the act of throwing to the Prophet, even if it does then negate it from him by attributing agency to God instead. On the other hand, the verse, Make war on them so that Allah may punish them by your hands, af rms that it is God who punishes them and makes the hands of the faithful instruments of this divine action without any say in it.

The Muʿtazilī theologian al-Jubāʾī responds by arguing that if God punishing the disbelievers with the hands of the faithful meant this, it could also be said that He punishes the faithful with the hands of the disbelievers, or that He rejected the prophets with their tongues, and that he cursed the faithful and reviled them with their mouths, because God created all of that. However, we cannot say this. Therefore, we know that God does not create the actions of human beings in this manner, rather they create their own actions. Based on this, when the verse attributes the punishment of the idolaters to God, this is meant in a broader sense. After all, this only transpires as a result of His command and His grace. This is in the same vein that He attributes all acts of obedience and virtuous deeds to Himself because they take place through His commands and His assistance.

Al-Rāzī responds to al-Jubāʾī’s point by saying that the Ashʿarīs agree with al-Jubāʾī’s conclusion that their argument entails assigning bad deeds to God as well and they agree with this doctrine in principle, even if they do not necessarily express it as al-Jubāʾī has out of respect for God.

18:73The discussions we have presented about these ideas above should be suf - cient for the reader to discern the truth of the matter in this context, while also making clear the errors that both of these theological schools have fallen into.

As regards the Ashʿarī position, they are compelled to adopt it because they deny the existence of any causal relation between created things and say that God is the sole and immediate cause for all things in existence. Therefore, there is no cause in existence, whether independent of God or dependent upon Him, save God. According to them, the causal relationship that human beings observe between different created things is merely the appearance of causality. In reality, even this appearance of causality only exists because God wills it so: It is a habit that God follows in His creation, but it is not something He is bound to observe. Therefore, what we call causes and effects are all caused by God (and this is genuine causation). As for the causation that we observe between created causes and effects, there is no genuine causation here, merely the co-occurrence of two phenomena in all or the majority of cases.

However, this position entails the denial of the very idea of causality, even the causality that they have af rmed for God. After all, if all the things in existence share the same relation to one another, without any distinction between causes and effects, then there is no basis on which the human being can posit the notion of causality. Therefore, if he cannot conceive of causality, he cannot attribute it to God in the first place.

On the contrary, though, the human being expects phenomena to cause other phenomena, and is certain that the same actions will produce the same results time and again. He bases his entire life on the principle that effects follow from causes, irrespective of whether or not he believes in a Creator. This is not possible unless the human being innately believes in the principle of causality, and if it was possible for human nature to accept a denial of this principle and assert in its place the idea that all phenomena happen by pure coincidence, then his entire life would unravel because his mental or physical efforts would be rendered meaningless. Moreover, there would be no way for him to deduce the existence of a First Cause from the chains of causality that he observes amongst material phenomena.

The Qur’an itself bases its explanations on the assumption that causation is real. It assigns every good deed to God and negates the ascription of any evil deeds or sins to Him. It names Him with every beautiful name and describes Him with every good attribute. It negates from Him all mockery, absurdity, idleness, and frivolity. None of this is possible unless causality is real, and we have already explained previously how to reconcile God’s absolute power with human free-will.

18:74Some materialists, and especially the proponents of dialectical materialism, draw the same conclusion as the Ashʿarī theologians by af rming determinism and negating human free-will. The only difference between the materialists and the Ashʿarīs is that the latter base their position on the principle of divine occasionalism, namely that God alone is the cause of all things and that, therefore, there is no causation or free-will for the human being. By contrast, the materialists argue that human actions are merely the result of the sum of phenomena leading up to the action, and there is no human volition or freewill involved in this process. Therefore, all human actions are predetermined and pref gured by material laws.

However, what escapes them is the fact that the relationship of a human action to the sum of phenomena that necessitated it is that of an effect to a suf cient cause (ʿilla tāmma, or ‘complete cause’), such that it does not depend on its existence for anything beyond them. Therefore, when all of these phenomena exist, the effect necessarily comes into being as well. As for the individual components of this complete cause—each of which is a necessary cause (ʿilla nāqiṣ, ‘incomplete cause’) but not a suf cient one—their relationship to the effect is one of contingency rather than necessity, as its existence depends on the presence of other factors beyond them. Therefore, the effect will not come into being if only some of the components of its cause are present.

For their existence, human actions depend upon the person, their volition, and innumerable other conditions, such as time, place, and materials. Therefore, the relationship between the action and all of these conditions, assuming that they obtain, is one of necessity. However, the relationship of the action to the human being alone, or the human being combined with their volition to perform the actions, is a relationship of an effect to a necessary cause, which is one of contingency but not necessity. This is because the voluntary actions of a human being emanate from his or her free-will. In other words, it is possible for them to perform the action or to abstain from it. If they perform it, then they do so based on their own volition, and if they do not perform it, this is also based on their own volition. However, whenever the action takes place, it does so necessarily because all of the conditions necessary for its existence in objective reality have been met, including human free-will.

Therefore, the materialists confuse two different kinds of modal relation: The necessary (wujūb) relation that exists between an action and all of the components of its suf cient cause taken as a whole, and the contingent (imkān) relation that exists between an action and each individual component of its suf cient cause taken separately. The latter includes human free-will.

18:75As for the Muʿtazila, their argument is that if God can be assigned the actions of the faithful, such as punishing the idolaters, this not only reduces them to mere passive instruments. What is more, it means that when the faithless persecute the faithful, or deny the prophets, or curse the believers, this can also be attributed to God. They say this is def nitively false and, therefore, conclude that the actions of human beings are created by themselves rather than by God.

However, while their premise is correct, the conclusion they draw from it is false, as this argument does not entail that human beings create their own actions and that these actions have no relationship with God whatsoever. This is because, as we have discussed, such actions can be assigned to God by virtue of the same relationship by which they are assigned to the people that perform them. This is because while they are the cause of the actions, God is the cause of their existence. Therefore, they are the immediate cause from whom the actions emanate, but God is the ultimate cause who brought them into being. These two relations are, in fact, a single relation with multiple facets: Immediate and ultimate, direct and indirect. This does not imply any over determination, meaning that two causes have independently produced the same effect where either one would have suf ced on its own, because these two causes are related vertically and hierarchically rather than horizontally and in parallel.

Now, if someone was to argue: ‘But this doesn’t solve the problem of both good deeds and bad deeds, and faith and infidelity all being assigned to God!’

We would respond by saying that our thesis only attributes the fact of their existence to God, but the direct action that produced these deeds in the form of movement in a particular time and place—for example, in the case of marriage or adultery, or eating permissible food or forbidden food—came from the human being, because he is the material entity that served as the locus of these movements. The one who created this being with the ability to move and act (while not being in motion Himself) is God, and this moving being came into existence because all the necessary causes and conditions of his existence were met. Therefore, God is not attributed with the actions of this being, such as marriage, adultery, or any other action he undertakes, in the same way as He is not described as ‘moving’ just because He has created something with the power of movement.

Of course, there are general categories of action that require neither movement or matter, in which case there is no problem with attributing them to both man and God. For example, guidance and misguidance (so long as the latter does not imply that God misguided someone in the first instance) or punishment and putting to trial. Therefore, when a believer kills an idolater, this is a divine punishment for the idolater. On the other hand, when an idolater kills a believer, this is a divine trial for the believer. Furthermore, the latter is a good thing, as it gives the believer the opportunity to earn God’s reward. And so on, and so forth.

18:76As for what I claimed previously, namely that in adopting this as their counter-argument the Muʿtazila encountered the same problem as the Ashʿarīs, namely that they would be unable to deduce God’s existence, the explanation of this is as follows: If there existed in the world some phenomenon that was brought into being by a sole cause with no cause of its own to act upon it, this would mean that there could be phenomena in existence that depend only upon their causes, and that these causes do not depend on anything else beyond themselves for their existence. Now, it is possible for a cause to disappear and the effect to remain. Therefore, it would be possible to assign every phenomenon in the cosmos to a cause other than the Necessary Being. In fact, one could assign the existence of the entirety of the cosmos to a cosmos that came before it and brought it into being. This previous cosmos has since ceased to exist. This would mean that everything in the cosmos produces everything else without entailing an infinite regress of causes, because at no point is there a never-ending chain of causes in existence. Therefore, it would be impossible to deduce God’s existence from such a conception of causality.

There are many other problems evident with the Muʿtazila’s thesis, which have been highlighted elsewhere. We have already discussed the relationship of the cosmos to God in the sixth part of this work, and some of what we said there is beneficial to our present discussion.

How can any monotheistic Muslim af rm that there is a creator alongside God in the literal sense of the word ‘creator,’ when God has explicitly stated: That is Allah, your Lord, the creator of all things, there is no Allah except Him (40:62). This is a principle that has been repeatedly mentioned in the Qur’an. However, it is possible to attribute responsibility for human actions to human beings without cutting them off from God causally. On the contrary, these verses illustrate that human actions are ultimately caused by God, even while reason tells us that the moral responsibility for these actions lies with human beings.

In conclusion, human actions are related both to their immediate causes (the human beings that perform them) and to their ultimate cause (God) in a way that does not infringe upon God’s divinity. God says: To these and to those—to all We extend the bounty of your Lord, and the bounty of your Lord is not confined (17:20).