8. Al-Anfaal

If Allah’s words are recited to them, they say – stubborn against the truth, considering themselves above it, and disbelieving – that they have heard something similar before, and that if they wanted to say something similar to the Qur’ān they could, saying that the Qur’ān is just the fables of earlier peoples.

Remember when the idolaters said to Allah that if what Muhammad brought was true, then He should rain rocks down from the sky to destroy them, or bring them a painful punishment. They said this going to extremes in their denial and rejection.

But Allah would not punish your nation O Muhammad, with a punishment that destroyed them while you are living among them, for you living among them keeps them safe from this punishment. And Allah would not punish them as long as they asked Him for forgiveness for their sins.

What prevents them being punished when they have unjustly stopped people from performing both the circling (ţawāf) and the prayer in the Sacred Mosque – actions deserving of punishment? The idolaters are not Allah’s allies. The allies of Allah are only those who are mindful of Him by fulfilling His instructions and avoiding His prohibitions. Most of the idolaters do not know this, as they claim they are Allah’s allies when they are not.

The prayer of the idolaters at the Sacred Mosque was nothing but whistling and clapping. So taste, O idolaters, the punishment of being killed or taken prisoner on the day of Badr because of your disbelief in Allah and rejection of His Messenger.

Disbelievers in Allah spend their wealth to prevent people from Allah’s religion, but they will not achieve their goal. The end result of their spending of wealth in this way will be sadness, because they will lose their wealth and fail in their goal; and then they will be defeated by the believers. Disbelievers in Allah will be driven to Hell on the Day of Judgement and will enter it to live there eternally.

Disbelievers who spend their wealth to prevent people from the path of Allah will be driven to the fire of Hell, so that Allah may isolate the wicked group of disbelievers from the pure group of believers, and so that He may place bad people, actions and wealth on top of one another in a pile and place them in the fire of Hell. They are the losers, because they will lose their souls and their families on the Day of Judgement.

Say, O Messenger, to those of your people who disbelieve in Allah and His Messenger that if they stop disbelieving in Allah and His Messenger and preventing the believers from Allah’s path, then Allah will forgive their past sins, because Islam wipes out what is before it; but if they return to their disbelief, then Allah’s way of dealing with earlier people has already come as a warning: when they rejected and continued in their disbelief, He swiftly punished them.

O believers, fight your disbelieving enemies until there is no more idolatry or Muslims being stopped from Allah’s religion, when religion and obedience is for Allah alone without any partner being put alongside Him. If the disbelievers stop their idolatry and preventing Muslims from Allah’s religion, then leave them, because Allah sees what they do and nothing is hidden from Him.

If they turn away from the order to leave disbelief and preventing others from Allah’s religion, then be certain, O believers, that Allah will help you against them. What an excellent protector He is for the one He protects, and what an excellent helper He is for the one He helps! Whoever He protects will be successful and whoever He helps will be victorious.