Читать книгу Towards Understanding the Qur'an - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi - Страница 114

Al-Baqarah 2: 218

They will not cease fighting against you till they turn you from your religion if they can. (So remember well) that who- ever from amongst you turns away from his religion and dies in the state of unbelief their work will go to waste in this world and in the Next. They are destined for the Fire and it is there that they will abide. (218) (On the contrary) those who believed, and forsook their hearth and home and strove in the Way of Allah,71 such may rightly hope for the mercy of Allah: for Allah is All- Forgiving, All-Merciful.

information about their plans, but not to engage in fighting. In the course of this journey they came across a trade caravan belonging to the Quraysh and ambushed it. They killed one person and captured the rest along with their belongings and took them to Madinah. They did this at a time when the month of Rajab was approaching its end and Sha[ban was about to begin. It was, therefore, doubtful whether the attack was actually carried out in one of the sacred months, that is, Rajab, or not. But the Quraysh, and the Jews who were secretly in league with them, as well as the hypocrites played up this affair and used it as a weapon in their propaganda campaign against the Muslims. They pointed out the contradiction between the claims of the Muslims to follow true faith on the one hand, and their not hesitating to shed blood in a sacred month on the other. This verse is addressed to these objections.

71 Jihad denotes exerting one’s utmost to achieve something. It is not an equivalent of war, for which the Arabic word is qital. Jihad has a wider connotation and embraces every kind of striving in God’s cause.

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