4. An-Nisaa

O you who have faith in Allah and follow His Messenger, be on your guard against your enemies by adopting the means that will help you to fight them. Go out to fight them one group after the other or go out altogether and do what is in your interests and what will bring loss to your enemies.

There are among you, O Muslims, some people who hesitate to go out to fight your enemies, because of their cowardice, and who also try to keep others behind. They are the hypocrites and who are weak in faith. If you are killed or defeated, then one of them, happy that he is safe, says, ‘Allah has favoured me in that I was not present at the fight with them, otherwise I would have also been harmed like them’.

Let the true believers – who sell the life of this world in exchange for the Afterlife, desiring the Afterlife more than the goods of this world – fight in the path of Allah so that Allah’s Word is victorious. Anyone who fights in the path of Allah, so that His Word triumphs, and is killed as a martyr or defeats the enemy and is successful, Allah will give them a great reward: Paradise and the pleasure of Allah.

What is preventing you, O believers, from striving in the path of Allah in order to raise His Word and to rescue the oppressed men, women and children who call to Allah, saying, ‘Our Lord, let us leave Makkah, because its people are oppressive – due to their associating partners with Allah and their aggression towards His servants. Give us someone from You who will take control of our affairs, take care of us and protect us from harm’.

The true believers fight in the path of Allah in order to raise His Word. The disbelievers, on the other hand, fight in the path and way of Satan. So fight the supporters of Satan. If you fight them, you will defeat them, because Satan’s strategy is weak and it cannot harm those who place their reliance in Allah.

Have you, O Messenger, thought about the condition of some of your Companions who asked that striving in Allah’s path be ordained for them, but they were told, ‘Restrain your hands from fighting, establish the prayer and give charity ’. This was before striving in Allah’s path was ordained. When they migrated to Medina and Islam became strong, and fighting was ordained, they found it difficult, and some of them began fearing people as they should fear Allah or even more than that. They said, ‘Our Lord, why did You ordain fighting for us? Why did You not delay it for a while so we could enjoy the worldly life’. Say to them, O Messenger: The enjoyment of the world, no matter how much, is little and perishable. Yet the Hereafter is better for the one who is mindful of Allah because its delights are everlasting. Your good actions will not be reduced in the least, not even to the extent of the thread that is on the date stone.

At any time and place, death will surely come to you when reach your prescribed life term, even if you are in guarded palaces far from battle. And when these hypocrites receive something pleasing, such as a child or wealth, they say, ‘This is from Allah’. Yet when they face some difficulty with respect to their children or wealth, they attribute a bad sign and misfortune to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and they say, ‘This evil is because of you’. Say, O Messenger, in response to these people: Everything, good or bad, occurs by Allah’s decree and decision. What is the matter with these people, who say such things, that they can hardly understand anything you tell them?

O humankind, any good that pleases you – such as wealth or children – is from Allah. He has sent it to you through His grace. Whatever bad occurs to you in respect of your wealth or children is from your own self because of the sins you commit. I have sent you, O Prophet, as a messenger to all people to communicate to them the message of your Lord. Allah is enough of a witness to the truth of what you communicate from Him, because of the evidences and proof He has given you.

Whoever follows the Messenger by fulfilling his instructions and avoiding his prohibitions has actually followed Allah. If anyone turns away from following you, O Messenger, do not feel sad about it, because I have not sent you as a guard to watch over what they do. I am the One Who will watch them and hold them to account for their actions.