9. At-Tawba

And among those around you, O inhabitants of Medina, of the Bedouins there are hypocrites, such as [the tribes of] Aslam, Ashja‘ and Ghifār, and among the townspeople of Medina, there are also hypocrites, who are obstinate in hypocrisy, engrossed in it and persisting [in it]. You do not know them — an address to the Prophet (s) — but We know them, and We shall chastise them twice, by disgracing them or having them killed in this world, and by way of punishment in the grave, then they will be returned, in the Hereafter, to a terrible chastisement, namely, the Fire.

And [there are] others (ākharūn is the subject), [another] folk, who have confessed their sins, for having stayed behind (i‘tarafū bi-dhunūbihim is an adjectival qualification of it [the subject] and the predicate is [the following, khalatū ‘amalan sālihan]) they have mixed a righteous deed, that is, their former [participation in the] struggle, or the their confession of their sins, or otherwise, with another that was bad, which is their having stayed behind. It may be that God will relent to them. Truly God is Forgiving, Merciful: this was revealed regarding Abū Lubāba and a group of men who tied themselves to the walls of the mosque after they heard what had been revealed regarding those who stayed behind; they swore that only the Prophet (s) would untie them, which he did when this [verse] was revealed.

Take of their wealth some alms, to purify them and to cleanse them thereby, of their sins; he thus took a third of their wealth and gave it away as charity; and pray for them, that is, supplicate for them; truly your prayers are a comfort, a mercy, for them: it is also said [to mean] reassurance [for them], that their repentance has been accepted. And God is Hearer, Knower.

Do they not know that God is He Who accepts repentance from His servants and takes, accepts, the voluntary alms, and that God is He Who is the Relenting, to His servants, by accepting their repentance, and the Merciful?, to them (the interrogative is intended as an affirmative [statement] and is meant to incite them to [offer] repentance and charity).

And say, to them, or to people [in general]: ‘Act, as you will, for God will surely see your actions, and [so will] His Messenger and the believers, and you will be returned, through resurrection, to the Knower of the unseen and the visible, that is, [to] God, and He will tell you what you used to do’, and so requite you for it.

And [there are] others, from among those who stayed behind, who are deferred (read murja’ūna or murjawna), whose repentance is delayed, to God’s command, concerning them, according to His will, whether He chastises them, by causing them to die without [their having made any] repentance, or relents to them; and God is Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in what He does with them. These [others mentioned] are the three, who will be mentioned afterwards: Murāra b. al-Rabī‘, Ka‘b b. Mālik and Hilāl b. Umayya. They stayed behind out of laziness and their inclination for peace and quiet, not out of hypocrisy. Unlike the others, however, they did not excuse themselves before the Prophet (s), and so the matter regarding them was suspended for fifty days, during which time people avoided them, until it was later revealed that God had relented to them.

And, among them, those who have chosen a mosque — these were twelve men from among the hypocrites — by way of harm, to cause distress for those of the mosque of Qubā’, and disbelief, since they built it on the orders of the monk Abū ‘Āmir, as a sanctuary for him, so that whoever comes from his side may stay there: he had gone to the Byzantine Emperor (qaysar) to bring troops to fight against the Prophet (s), and to cause division among the believers, who pray in the mosque of Qubā’, by having some of these pray in their [the hypocrites’] mosque, and as an outpost, an observation post, for those who waged war against God and His Messenger before, that is, before it was built — meaning the above-mentioned Abū ‘Āmir — they will swear: ‘We desired nothing, by building it, but, to do, good’, by way of kindness towards the poor in times of [heavy] rain or [extreme] heat and in order to provide [a place of worship] for the Muslims; and God bears witness that they are truly liars, in this [claim of theirs]. They had asked the Prophet (s) to perform prayers in it, and so the following was revealed:

Is he who founded his building upon fear of God and, in hope of, beatitude, from Him, better, or he who founded his building upon the brink, the edge, of a bank, an overhang, that is crumbling, about to collapse (read juruf or jurf) so that it toppled with him, so that it collapsed [taking] with it the one who built it, into the fire of Hell?: [this is] an excellent similitude for building upon that which constitutes the opposite of fear of God and [for] what it leads to; the interrogative is meant as an affirmative: in other words, the former is the better, which is the likeness of the [building of the] mosque of Qubā’, while the latter is the likeness of the mosque of ‘harm’ (masjid al-dirār). And God guides not the evildoing folk.

The buildings which they have built will never cease to be a misgiving, a point of doubt, in their hearts unless their hearts are cut, torn, to pieces, such that they die; and God is Knower, of His creatures, Wise, in what He does with them.