Tafsir of At-Tawbah 9:66

"Make no excuse": That is, do not busy yourselves with making excuses and persist in them. The prohibition is not directed at the origin of the excuse, for it had already occurred; rather, they were forbidden from this because what they claimed was known to be false and clearly invalid.

It is said that al-i'tidhar (making an excuse) refers to erasing the trace of a sin; it is derived from the expression "the dwellings were u'tudhirat" (effaced/obliterated) when they became worn out, for the one making an excuse attempts to remove and efface the trace of his sin.

It is also said that it means "cutting." From this, the foreskin (qulfa) is called 'udhra because it is tu'dhar (cut off). Virginity (bikarah) is also called 'udhra because it is severed by defloration. It is said, "the waters u'tudhirat" when they are cut off. Since an excuse ('udhr) is a cause for cutting off blame, it was named as such. Both views are transmitted from the linguists, and according to al-Wahidi, they are closely related.

"You have disbelieved": That is, you have manifested disbelief by harming the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, and attacking him.

"After your belief": That is, after your outward display of belief. This, and what preceded it, applies because the people are hypocrites; the root of disbelief is in their inner selves, and in reality, they possess no belief. Some have used this verse as evidence that seriousness and jesting in expressing the word of disbelief are the same, and there is no disagreement among the Imams regarding this.

"If We forgive a faction of you": Because of their repentance and sincerity—assuming the address is to all hypocrites—or because of their being saved from the harm and mockery—assuming the address is to those among them who harmed and mocked. The forgiveness here refers to the immediate worldly punishment.

"We will punish a faction because they were criminals": That is, persisting in hypocrisy, as they are not the ones who repented; or having engaged in it, as they are not those who abstained.

Ibn Ishaq, Ibn al-Mundhir, and Ibn Abi Hatim narrated from Ka'b ibn Malik, who said—in a long account—that the one who was forgiven was Makhshi ibn Humayr al-Ashja'i. He took the name 'Abd al-Rahman and asked Allah, the Exalted, to be killed as a martyr in a place where his killing would not be known. He was killed on the day of Yamamah; neither his killing nor his slayer was known, and no sign or trace of him was seen. In some narrations, it is said that when this verse was revealed, he repented from his hypocrisy and said: "O Allah, I cease not to hear a verse from which skins tremble and hearts are cowed. O Allah, let my death be a killing in Your path, so that no one says 'I washed him,' 'I shrouded him,' or 'I buried him.'" He was struck on the day of Yamamah, and his prayer was answered, may Allah be pleased with him.

From this, Mujahid said: "A ta'ifah (faction) can refer to anything from one person to a thousand." Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both, said: "A ta'ifah is one person or a group."

It has been recited as ya'fu (He forgives) and yu'adhdhib (He punishes) with the letter ya (in the third person), making Allah the subject of the active verb. It has also been recited as tu'fu and tu'adhdhib with the letter ta (in the passive), making the verb passive. This reading has been considered problematic, as in it the first verb is ascribed to a prepositional phrase ('an ta'ifah), and it is mandatory for such a verb to be masculine; it is not permissible for it to be feminine if the object of the preposition is feminine. One says, "Travel was undertaken upon the mount (sayyira 'ala al-dabbah)," and one does not say "it was traveled upon it (sayyirat)." The response given is that this is a matter of leaning toward the meaning and observing it; therefore, it was feminized due to the feminine object of the preposition, because the meaning of "If tu'fu (is forgiven) for a faction" is "If mercy is shown to a faction." This is among the rarities of the Arabic language. It is also said that if one were to claim it is for the sake of mushakalah (coherence of form), it would not be far-fetched. Others say that the deputy subject (passive agent) is the pronoun referring to the sins, and the estimation is: "If they (the sins) are forgiven."

Some people have found the conditional structure itself to be problematic, asking: How can "We will punish a faction" be a valid response to the preceding condition, given that a condition and its consequence require a connection via causality or necessity in the statement, both of which are absent here? 'Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam mentioned this in his Amali, and the scholar Ibn Hajar transmitted it from him in the Dhayl al-Fatawa, mentioning that he had not seen anyone point out a response to it.

I mentioned this question, along with its answer for the aforementioned scholar, while I was in the prime of my youth, to a sheikh among the people of knowledge who had experienced much of life. I asked him to solve it, but he turned away from stating the answer found in the Dhayl, I suspect because of his ignorance of it. He girded his loins and revealed his leg (i.e., took a firm stand) to provide an answer of his own making, saying: "The condition is ittifaqiyyah (coincidental), like your saying: 'If man is a rational being, then the donkey is a brayer.'" He proceeded to argue this in a way that would make even a grieving woman laugh. There is no power and no strength except through Allah, the Most High, the Almighty.

Our master Sari al-Din replied that the consequence (result) is omitted and is caused by what is mentioned; that is: "Then they should not be lax," or "They should not be lax," for there must be a punishment for a faction. Then he said: "If it is said: 'This estimation does not provide the causality of the content of the condition for the content of the consequence,' I say: It is carried upon its causality for the informing of the content of the consequence, or its causality for the command not to be deluded, by analogy to the information." The scholar al-Taftazani verified the discussion on this in his marginalia on the Kashshaf at the verse: "Say, whoever is an enemy to Gabriel, then it is he who has brought it down upon your heart" (2:97) in Surah al-Baqarah.