Tafsir of Al-Anfal 8:36

"Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah"

It was revealed—according to what has been narrated from al-Kalbi, al-Dahhak, and Muqatil—regarding those who provided food on the day of Badr. They were twelve men: Abu Jahl, 'Utbah and Shaybah (the two sons of Rabi'ah ibn 'Abd Shams), Muniyah and Buniyah (the two sons of al-Hajjaj), Abu al-Bakhtari ibn Hisham, al-Nadr ibn al-Harith, Hakim ibn Hizam, Ubayy ibn Khalaf, Zam'ah ibn al-Aswad, al-Harith ibn 'Amir ibn Nawfal, and al-'Abbas ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib. All of them were from Quraysh. Each day, they would provide ten camels [for food]. The turn on the day of the defeat belonged to al-'Abbas.

Ibn Ishaq narrated that it was revealed regarding the owners of the caravan. This is because when Quraysh were afflicted on the day of Badr and returned to Mecca, Safwan ibn Umayyah and 'Ikrimah ibn Abi Jahl walked among the men of Quraysh whose fathers and brothers had been struck at Badr. They spoke to Abu Sufyan and those of Quraysh who had trade in that caravan, saying: "O people of Quraysh, Muhammad has caused you loss and killed your men, so assist us with this wealth against his war, that we may perhaps attain our revenge upon him for those of us who were struck." So they did so.

From Sa'id ibn Jubayr and Mujahid, it is said that it was revealed regarding Abu Sufyan, for he hired two thousand of the Ahabish (tribal confederates) for the day of Uhud to fight the Prophet (may the blessings of Allah be upon him) in addition to those he rallied from the Arabs. He spent forty uqiyahs of gold on them, and the uqiyah at that time was forty-two mithqals of gold. Regarding them, Ka'b ibn Malik says in a long poem with which he answered Hubayrah ibn Abi Wahb:

"We came to a wave of the sea in their midst, Ahabish, among them bare and armored. Three thousand, while we were a band Of three hundred, or four if we were many."

"The way of Allah" is His path; what is intended by it is His religion and the following of His Messenger (may the blessings of Allah be upon him). The lam in li-yasuddu (to avert) is the lam of outcome (lam al-sayrurah). It is also valid for it to be for causation (ta'lil), because their intention was indeed to avert from the path according to reality, even if it was not so in their belief. It is as if this is an explanation of their financial worship following their physical worship.

The Mawsul (the relative pronoun "those who") is the subject of Inna, and its predicate—according to what the scholar al-Tibi said regarding the words of the Almighty: "Then they will spend it"—is "then they will spend it." "And they spend" is either a state (hal), a substitute for "those who disbelieve," or an explicative conjunction ('atf bayan). The predicate is joined with the fa because the subject—the mawsul with its conjunctive clause—contains the meaning of a condition, as in the words of the Almighty: "Indeed, those who have tortured the believing men and believing women and then have not repented, for them is the punishment of Hell." It is a retribution in terms of meaning. The repetition of "spending" in both the condition and the retribution indicates the complete evil of the spending, as in the words of the Almighty: "Indeed, whoever enters the Fire, you have disgraced him," and their saying: "Whoever reaches the Saman (a place), has reached the pasture." The speech conveys a reproach for the spending and a denial of it.

It is said: To this refers the statement of some that the context of what preceded is to explain the purpose of the spending, while the context of this is to explain its outcome, and that it has not yet occurred, so it is not from the forbidden repetition. It is also said in defense of it: The meaning of the first is the spending at Badr—and "they will spend" is for the narration of the past state—and they are two predicates. The second is the spending at Uhud, and the future tense remains as it is. The sentence is a conjunction to the predicate, but since the spending of the first group was a cause for the spending of the second, the fa was brought in because it is built upon it. Al-Qutb went to this interpretation as well, assuming the avoidance of repetition through the difference in the two purposes. He mentioned that the conclusion is that if we carry "they will spend" as a present state, there must be a difference between the two spendings, and if we carry it as a future tense, they become unified, as if it were said: "Indeed, those who disbelieve want to spend their wealth, so they will spend it." The act of holding the "spender" in the first as a part and in the second as the whole, I do not see as anything other than what you see.

His words, the Almighty: "Then it will be for them a regret"—it is a conjunction to what precedes it, and the delay is temporal. Hasrah (regret) is remorse and sorrow. Its verb is hasara (like fariha), meaning: then it will be for them remorse and sorrow for its loss without attaining the desired goal. This is apparent regarding Badr. As for Uhud, it is because their objective was not achieved after that, so it was like something lost. The pronoun in "it will be" refers to the wealth, in the sense that its outcome will be a regret for them; thus the speech is based on the assumption of two deleted nouns or the commission of a metaphor in the attribution.

The second scholar said: It is of the category of metaphor in the complex, where the state of their spending's outcome being a regret is likened to the state of the wealth itself being such, and the thing being likened is used for the thing being likened to; there is obscurity in it. Some people said: The application of "regret" is by way of metaphor on the spending as an exaggeration, so understand.

"Then they will be overcome" (i.e., in other places after that).

"And those who disbelieve" (i.e., those who insisted on disbelief among them and did not become Muslim) "into Hell will be gathered"—meaning they will be driven, not to anywhere else.