Tafsir of Al-Baqarah 2:191

That is, wherever you encounter them, as Ibn Abbas—may Allah be pleased with both of them—said when Nafi ibn al-Azraq asked him about it and recited to him the verse of Hassan—may Allah be pleased with him—: "If the tribe of Lu'ayy finds [them], then killing them is the remedy." The root of al-thaqf (finding/grasping) is skill in attaining a thing, whether in action or knowledge, and it is frequently used for absolute attainment. The verb is thaqafa, like karuma (to be noble) and fariha (to be glad).

And drive them out from whence they drove you out: That is, Mecca. This was indeed done to them in the Year of the Conquest. This command is conjoined to the previous one, and the intent is: do whichever of these two matters is possible for you regarding the polytheists. Thus, the objection that the command to drive out is incompatible with the command to kill—since killing and driving out cannot be simultaneous—is dismissed. There is no need for the forced interpretation that the intent is to drive out those who had entered into a treaty or those found under a treaty, as is obvious.

And persecution is worse than killing: That is, their polytheism in the Sacred Mosque is worse in ugliness, so do not fear fighting them therein; for it is the committing of an ugly act to prevent one that is uglier, thus it is permitted for you and will expiate for you. Or, the trial by which a person is tested—such as being driven out of a homeland beloved to sound natures—is more difficult than killing because of the persistence of its fatigue and the soul's suffering through it. Hence it is said: "Being killed by the edge of a sword is easier on the soul than being killed by the edge of separation."

According to the first interpretation, the sentence is a form of supplementation and precaution for His saying, "And kill them," against the illusion that fighting in the Sacred Mosque is ugly, so how could it be commanded? According to the second, it is a trailing clause to His saying, "And drive them out," to clarify the state of being driven out and to encourage it. The root of fitnah (persecution/trial) is the exposing of gold to fire to extract it from impurities; then it was used for trials, torment, turning away from the religion of Allah, and polytheism—the latter being how Abu al-Aliyah interpreted it in the verse.

And do not fight them near the Sacred Mosque until they fight you in it: This is a prohibition for the believers from initiating combat in that noble place until they are the ones who begin it. The prohibition of muqatalah (mutual fighting)—which is an act of two parties—is in consideration of prohibiting the initiation of it, which is the cause of its occurrence. Likewise, it being a boundary is in consideration of the start of hostilities, lest it follow that a thing is a boundary for itself.

Then if they fight you, kill them: This removes the embarrassment regarding fighting in the Sacred Mosque, which the Muslims feared and disliked. That is, if they fight you there, do not worry about fighting them, for they are the ones who violated the sanctity, and in fighting them, you are repelling death from yourselves. The apparent expression would have been to use the command form of the mufaa'alah (reciprocal) measure, yet it was diverted to the command form of the simple fa'ala measure as glad tidings to the believers of victory over them. That is, they are in such a state of desertion and lack of divine support that you have been commanded to kill them.

Hamzah and al-Kisa'i read: "Wa la taqtuluhum hatta yaqtulukum fa-in qatalukum fa-uqtuluhum" (And do not kill them until they kill you, then if they kill you, kill them). Al-A'mash objected to Hamzah regarding this reading, saying: "Tell me, according to your reading, if a man is already killed, how can he subsequently be a killer of others?" Hamzah replied: "When a man of the Arabs is killed, they say, 'We have been killed,' and when a man of them is struck, they say, 'We have been struck.'" The gist is that the speech is based on the ellipsis of a genitive added to the object, which is the word "some," so it does not follow that the killed person is the killer. As for attributing the action to the pronoun, it is based on the fact that an action performed by some with the consent of others is attributed to the whole as a figurative attribution; therefore, there is no need for estimation. Thus, al-A'mash was content in his question with the side of the object. Likewise, His saying, "And do not kill them" is valid in its literal sense without interpretation, because the meaning is absolute negation; that is: let no one among you kill one of them until some of them have committed killing. Furthermore, this interpretation is specific to this reading, and there is no need for it regarding "do not fight them," because the meaning is "do not initiate hostilities with them," and initiation cannot occur except through some starting to fight others. This was stated by some researchers, though it remained hidden to some observers, so reflect upon this.

Such is the recompense of the disbelievers: This is a trailing clause to what precedes it, meaning: like what they did, it shall be done to them. "The disbelievers" is either putting a noun in place of a pronoun as a way of rebuking them for their disbelief, or it refers to the genus, and the aforementioned ones are included in it primarily. The prepositional phrase in the famous view is a predicate moved to the front, and what follows it is the subject moved to the end. Abu al-Baqa' chose that "the kaf" (the 'like') functions as "like," a subject, and "recompense" is the predicate, since there is no rationale for moving the subject to the front.