9. At-Tawba

A declaration of immunity from God and His Messenger, [to the end of] the verse: when the Messenger was not able to sustain [his] uprightness because of the place of his variegation at times through the manifestation of his attributes and at other times because of the existence of remnants, as indicated by the QurÌān in those instances of [the Prophet receiving] rebuke and being made firm, such as [in] His saying he frowned and turned away [Q. 80:1]; and His saying And if We had not made you [stand] firm, certainly you might have inclined to them a little [Q. 17:74]; [and His saying] May God pardon you! Why do you give them leave�ḍ [Q. 9:43]; It is not for any prophet to have prisoners [Q. 8:67]; and when his [the Prophet's] companions from among the believers had not yet arrived at the station of the unity of the Essence, at times because of their veiling themselves with [their] acts and at other times with [their] attributes, there then was between them and the idolaters a correspondence, propinquity in terms of genus and a treaty, and thus by virtue of that genus-correspondence they made a covenant with them given that there was [this] connection between them. But when the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and the believers then obey His words, exalted be He, So be upright, as you have been commanded and those who repent with you [Q. 11:112], and when he had attained the utmost in fixity and the veils of the acts, thoe of the attributes and those of the essence had been removed from the faces of the wayfarers among his companions until they were able to reach the station of the unity of the Essence, that correspondence between them and the idolaters was [also] removed, and there no longer remained any sort of correspondence between them. Thereupon contrareity and opposition was realised [between them] and separation and enmity became justified and so was revealed: A declaration of immunity from God and His Messenger [Q. 9:1] to the idolaters with whom you made a pact: in other words, this state, the state of total separation and enmity between us and the declaration of true immunity from God, from the point of view of the union, and [from] His Messenger from the point of view of the differentiation given to him. Thus they declared themselves quit of them outwardly just as they were quit of them inwardly and they cast off their covenant [with them] formally just as they cast off the covenant with them in reality.

'Journey freely in the land for four months: commensurate with the number of their halting places in this world and in the Hereafter, by way of a warning for them. For since they halted in this world with the other in idolatrous association, they were veiled from religion and from the acts, the attributes and the Essence at the interstice of the human realm (nāsūt), and so it became necessary for them to make them halt in the Hereafter before God, then before the realm of divine power, then before the angelic realm, then before the Fire in the blazing furnace of vestiges, as has already been alluded to in [sūrat] al-Anʿām, where they are chastised with all manner of chastisements; and know that you cannot escape God, by virtue of the fact that you must necessarily be detained at these halting places because you halted with the other in idolatrous association: how then can you escape Himḍ and that God degrades the disbelievers', those who are veiled from the Truth by being disgracefully exposed upon the manifestation of the level of that which they used to worship besides God and its halting alongside [the disbeliever] before the Fire.

A proclamation, an apprising, from God and His Messenger to mankind on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage, that is, at the moment of the manifestation of the union of the Essence in the form of differentiation, as has already been mentioned; that God is free from obligation to the idolaters, and [so is] His Messenger, in reality, and so the outward conforms to the inward.

Excepting those of the idolaters with whom you have made a pact, and who have not diminished [their commitment to] you in anyway, in other words, this is a declaration of non-obligation towards them, except those [of them] in whom there remains some grip on preparedness or the vestige of a sound primordial nature and so are not involved in the breaking of any covenant, there remaining in them virtuous manliness, an indication of the soundness of [their] primordial nature and their adherence to God's former covenant by virtue of the existence [within them] still of preparedness and the possibility [for them] of returning to the unity; nor supported anyone against you, because of the lingering presence [within them] of the original connection (wuṣla) and the primordial affinity between you and them and [because of] the non-manifestation of [in them] of that enmity which is earned (kasbiyya); [as for these] fulfil your pact with them until the [conclusion of the] term, that is, the term during which the rust accumulates [on their hearts] and [their] veil is realised should they not relent and repent. Truly God loves those who fear [Him], those who have specifically avoided despicable traits, [such as] the breaking of a covenant, which is the mother of all despicable traits outwardly and inwardly.