The revelation of Sūrat al-Tawbah, barāʾah from the idolaters
historicalShaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:
As soon as Abū Bakr had left Medina, within a few hours, before he had even reached the mīqāt of Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, which is only a short ride out, Allāh sent down the opening pages of Sūrat al-Tawbah, two and a half pages directed at the idolaters of Arabia. When someone suggested the verses simply be forwarded on to Abū Bakr, the Prophet ﷺ said that none should convey them on his behalf but a member of his own household, and he chose ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, who had not been among the pilgrims, telling him to ride out and overtake the caravan.
❧The one sūrah with no Basmalah
Al-Tawbah was among the very last sūrahs revealed, some say the last long one, others name al-Māʾidah, so the two are held to be the final long sūrahs, and it alone opens without بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ. Two reasons are best known. The first is ʿAlī's own: the Basmalah is what one writes at the head of a covenant of mercy and safety, a treaty of raḥmah, whereas this sūrah is barāʾah, a severing of ties, its opening declares أَنَّ اللَّهَ بَرِيءٌ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ, "that Allāh is free of the idolaters," washing His hands of them, so it does not befit it to begin with "the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate." The second is a report of ʿUthmān in al-Tirmidhī, which raises a whole discussion of ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān: a student asked him why al-Tawbah carries no Basmalah and why it was placed after al-Anfāl, though al-Anfāl is early Medina (the sūrah of Badr) and al-Tawbah is late Medina (Tabūk and after), the two far apart in date. ʿUthmān answered that their theme was one, both concern qitāl and jihād, and that al-Tawbah came so late they were unsure whether it was a separate sūrah at all, so they set it after al-Anfāl and wrote no Basmalah. A matter, the shaykh notes, that belongs to Qurʾānic sciences, not the Sīrah.
❧The opening verses
بَرَاءَةٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ إِلَى الَّذِينَ عَاهَدْتُمْ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ, a declaration, powerful in its very first word, dissolving the treaties struck with the pagans across the sixth, seventh, and eighth years. And because Islam forbids breaking a pact by surprise, that is ḥarām, against the very etiquette of the faith, just as even a modern employer gives notice, Allāh grants a term: فَسِيحُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ أَرْبَعَةَ أَشْهُرٍ, "so travel the land freely for four months," safe to go anywhere and settle their affairs, pack up, visit family, take care of business, and "know that you cannot escape Allāh," this being a generous gift, not any weakness on His part. Then وَأَذَانٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ إِلَى النَّاسِ يَوْمَ الْحَجِّ الْأَكْبَرِ, a proclamation to all mankind on the Day of the Greater Ḥajj, which is Yawm al-Naḥr, the day of sacrifice after ʿArafah, that Allāh and His Messenger have cut off all ties with the idolaters. One exception is carved out: any tribe holding a fixed-term treaty who had never once breached it is honoured to the end of its term, فَأَتِمُّوا إِلَيْهِمْ عَهْدَهُمْ إِلَىٰ مُدَّتِهِمْ, for we are a fair people; be fair to whoever was fair to you.
❧The Verse of the Sword, in its context
The fifth verse is Āyat al-Sayf, the most misinterpreted verse of all, the one Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Fox News forever quote as "kill the pagans wherever you find them," ripped clean of everything around it. It must be read in the ninth year, as paganism was being cleared from the Ḥaram and the Arabian Peninsula alone. When those four sacred months lapse, and the stronger view is that these are the four months just granted, not the classical sacred months, the idolaters of Arabia face two options: abandon idolatry, or war; for open idolatry cannot be practised in the Peninsula. And the very same verse continues: فَإِنْ تَابُوا وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَوُا الزَّكَاةَ فَخَلُّوا سَبِيلَهُمْ, "but if they repent and establish prayer and give zakāh, then let them go their way," إِخْوَانُكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ, "they are your brothers in religion." And the next verse, the sixth, orders that any idolater who seeks protection be granted it, taught about Islam, and escorted safely to where he is secure, and then each goes his own way. Not a single person lost his life on account of this verse; it was a threat, meant to frighten, and it is why paganism vanished from Arabia, exactly what Islam intended, and we do not sugarcoat that: idolatry was not to remain in the Peninsula.
❧Who may live under Islamic rule
By unanimous consensus, Jews and Christians may live in the Islamic state if they pay the jizyah, there was never a controversy in that. The dispute was over others. ʿUmar was the first commander to conquer a people who were neither pagan nor of the Book, the Zoroastrians of Persia, and when the Ṣaḥābah differed over what to do, he ruled عَامِلُوهُمْ مُعَامَلَةَ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ, "treat them as the People of the Book," except that their women may not be married and their slaughtered meat is not lawful; they pay the jizyah and are protected. So all the schools agree that Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians may keep their synagogues, churches, and fire-temples under the jizyah, though they may not proselytise, for this was no post-modern secular society, and they differed only over faiths beyond these three, some schools admitting them and others not. And history was more tolerant still than the fiqh: whatever the jurists said, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Ottomans, and the Mughals of India all let idolaters be, the Yazīdīs, neither Christian nor Jew nor Zoroastrian nor Muslim, endured under empire after empire, and Aurangzeb was branded a fanatic merely for reviving ʿUmar's jizyah, though he never forced a single Hindu to convert or leave.