9. At-Tawba

Say ‘Are you waiting tarabbasūn one of the two original tā’ letters in tatarabbasūn has been omitted for anything to occur for us but one of the two fair things the two fair outcomes? husnayayn is the dual form of husnā which is the feminine form of ahsan that is victory or martyrdom? We are waiting in your case too for God to afflict you with a chastisement from Him with a calamity from the heaven or at our hands should we be given permission to fight you. So wait for this to befall us we are also waiting with you’ your end.

Say ‘Expend in obedience to God willingly or unwillingly it what you expend shall not be accepted from you; you are surely a wicked folk’ the imperative statement here also functions as a predicate.

And nothing prevents their expenditure from being accepted read as yuqbala or tuqbala from them but that they innahum is the subject of the verb while an tuqbala ‘being accepted’ constitutes the object have disbelieved in God and His Messenger and that they do not come to perform prayer save as idlers sluggishly and that they do not expend without their being reluctant to expend for they consider it a financial penalty.

So do not let their wealth or their children please you that is do not deem fair Our graces to them for this is a way of drawing them on by degrees to punish them God only desires thereby to chastise them in the life of this world by way of the hardship that they encounter in amassing such wealth and children and the calamities they suffer as a result thereof; and that their souls should depart while they are disbelievers so He punishes them in the Hereafter with the worst punishment.

And they swear by God that they truly are of you that is that they are believers; but they are not of you; they are a folk who are afraid that you should deal with them as you have done with the idolaters and so they swear merely in pretence in order to protect themselves.

If they could find a shelter in which to seek refuge or some caverns underground chambers or any place to enter they would turn and bolt away to it they would hasten to enter it and get away from you with the undeterred speed of an indomitable steed.

Some of them defame you concerning the apportioning of voluntary almsgivings; if they are given a share of them they are content but if they are given none then they are enraged.

If only they had been content with what God and His Messenger have given them in the way of spoils and the like and had said ‘Sufficient for us is God; God will give us from His bounty and His Messenger will also give us from other spoils what will suffice us; to God we are suppliants’ that He enrich us the response of the conditional law ‘if only’ is la-kāna khayran lahum ‘it would have been better for them’.

The voluntary almsgivings the alms to be dispensed are only for the poor who cannot find anything to suffice them in the least and the needy who cannot find anything to suffice them and those who work with them that is with these alms in other words the one who collects them the one who takes the oaths from those who claim them the slave to be manumitted by contract as well as the tax-summoner; and those whose hearts are to be reconciled so that they might become Muslims or that Islam might be firmly established or that their peers might become Muslims or that they might defend Muslims all of whom are classed according to different categories. According to al-Shāfi‘ī may God be pleased with him the first and the last of these categories are no longer given of the alms-tax today because of the established power of Islam; in contrast the other two categories are given of the alms-tax according to the sounder opinion; and for the manumission of slaves that is for slaves to be manumitted by contract and for the debtors those in debt if they have taken out a debt without intending thereby an act of disobedience or those who have repented but have nothing with which to fulfil the penalty of expiation or to set things right between people even if they be wealthy; and for the way of God that is for those who are engaged in the struggle of those for whom there is no share of the booty fay’ even if they be wealthy; and for the traveller the one cut off from resources during his journey — a duty imposed by God farīdatan ‘a duty’ is in the accusative because of an implied verb sc. faradahā ‘which He has imposed’. And God is Knower of His creatures Wise in His actions. Thus it is impermissible to dispense these alms-proceeds other than to these categories or to deny these proceeds to any one of these categories if they exist. The Imam must divide these proceeds among them equally but he is permitted to give priority to certain individuals over others within any one category. The lām of li’l-fuqarā’ ‘for the poor’ indicates that it is obligatory to include every individual of these categories in the distribution of the proceeds; it is not however obligatory to do so when the person in charge of the monies has to apportion it but finds that it is insufficient. Indeed in such a situation it suffices to give three individuals from each category but anything less than that is not sufficient as is indicated by the plural form. The Sunna shows that the prerequisite condition for receiving a share of such monies is that the person be a Muslim but not a Hashimī or a Muttālibī.