Tafsir of At-Tawbah 9:84

Al-Bukhari extracted from Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with both of them) who said: When Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul died, his son Abdullah bin Abdullah came to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) and asked him for his shirt to shroud his father in, and he gave it to him. Then he asked him to pray over him. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) stood up to pray, but Umar stood up, grabbed the garment of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), and said: "O Messenger of Allah, will you pray over him when your Lord has forbidden you to pray over him?" The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: "Allah has given me a choice, for He said: {Ask forgiveness for them, or do not ask forgiveness for them; if you ask forgiveness for them seventy times...} and I shall increase it beyond seventy." He said: "He is a hypocrite." So the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) prayed over him, then Allah Almighty revealed: {And do not pray over any one of them} to the end of the verse.

In another narration of his from Ibn Abbas from Umar bin al-Khattab: When Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul died, the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) was summoned to pray over him. When he stood up, I jumped toward him and said: "O Messenger of Allah, will you pray over Ibn Ubayy when he said on such-and-such a day, such-and-such?" listing his words to him. The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) smiled and said: "Step aside from me, O Umar." When I persisted, he said: "Step aside from me; if I knew that by increasing beyond seventy I would be forgiven, I would increase it." He said: So he prayed over him (upon him be peace and blessings), then turned away. He did not remain but a short while until the two verses of Bara'ah were revealed: {And do not pray over any one of them} to His saying: {And they are the defiantly disobedient}. I was amazed at my boldness toward the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace).

The apparent meaning of these two reports is that nothing descended between {Ask forgiveness for them...} and His saying Almighty: {And do not pray over any one of them} that would have benefited Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), otherwise it would have been mentioned. It is apparent that what he meant by the prohibition in the first report is what he understood from the first verse, not what is understood—as has been said—from His saying Almighty: {It is not for the Prophet and those who have believed to ask forgiveness for the polytheists}, because the response would not match in that case, as is not hidden.

Abu Ya’la and others extracted from Anas that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) intended to pray over Ibn Ubayy, so Gabriel (peace be upon him) grabbed his garment and said: {And do not pray...} the verse. Most narrations state that he (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) did pray over him, and that Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) wished that he would not pray over him, and counted this as one of his concordances with the revelation. He did not forbid shrouding him with his shirt while forbidding the prayer over him because the reluctance with the shirt would have been a pretext for a lack of generosity, in addition to the fact that it was compensation for the shirt that al-Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) had given him to wear when he was captured at Badr; for he (may Allah be pleased with him) was brought without a garment, and he was tall and large-bodied, and there was no garment equal to his height except the garment of Ibn Ubayy, so he clothed him in it.

Abu al-Shaykh extracted from Qatadah that they mentioned the shirt after the verse was revealed, and he (upon him be peace and blessings) said: "And what will my shirt avail him? By Allah, I hope that because of him more than a thousand from the tribe of Khazraj will enter Islam." And Allah Almighty fulfilled the hope of His Prophet.

As for what occurred from him (upon him be peace and blessings) regarding Ibn Ubayy, such as praying over him and other things, they are not free from contradiction. The scholars of Hadith have reconciled them as much as possible, and in Lubab al-Ta'wil there is a portion of that, so let it be consulted.

The prayer that is forbidden is the well-known funeral prayer, which includes supplication, seeking forgiveness, and intercession for him. It is said: The prohibition of it is due to his (upon him be peace and blessings) prohibition from supplicating for the hypocrites, which is understood from the previous verse or from His saying Almighty: {It is not for the Prophet...} etc. It is said: It is used here in the sense of supplication, but that is not strong.

{Ever} is an adverb related to the prohibition; it is said it relates to {has died}. Eternal death is a metonymy for dying in a state of disbelief, because the believer is resurrected and lives a good life, whereas the disbeliever, even if resurrected, is for the purpose of punishment, so it is as if he did not live. Some have claimed that if it related to the prohibition, it would mean that prayer would not be permissible for one who repents from them and dies in faith, despite there being no need for the condition of perpetuity in the prohibition of praying over them. It is not hidden that he is mistaken and did not realize that {among them} is a state (hal) from the pronoun in {has died}; i.e., he died while he was of them, meaning characterized by their characteristic, which is hypocrisy, just as they say: "You are of me," meaning on my path and my character, as they have stated. Furthermore, if the prepositional phrase were made an adjective for {any one}, what was mentioned would hardly be imagined. And how could it be imagined given His saying Almighty later: {Indeed, they disbelieved...} etc.? And his saying: "Despite there being no need for the prohibition..." is unnecessary to mention due to the clarity of what it contains.

{Has died} is past tense considering the cause of revelation and the time of the prohibition, and this does not contradict its generality and inclusion of those who will die. It is said: It is in the sense of the future, and he used it to express certainty. The sentence is in the position of an adjective for {any one}.

{And do not stand at his grave} means: Do not stand over it, nor take charge of his burial—from their saying: "So-and-so took charge of the affair of so-and-so," if he fulfills it for him and substitutes for him in it. It is understood from the speech of some that {at} is in the sense of "near," and the meaning is: Do not stand near his grave for burial or for visitation. The grave, in the common usage, is the place of burial for the dead, and it is possible that burial is intended here as well.

In the Fatawa of al-Jalal al-Suyuti: Is "standing" here interpreted as visiting graves? And can it be inferred from this that the wisdom behind his (may Allah be pleased with him) visit to his mother’s grave was to revive her so that she might believe in him, based on the evidence that the date of the visit was after the prohibition? The answer is: The meaning of "standing at the grave" is standing over it at the time of burial and for a while after it. It is possible that it also encompasses visitation, taken from the general wording. The date of the visit was before the prohibition, not after it; for what is authentic in the hadiths is that he (may Allah be pleased with him) visited it in the year of al-Hudaybiyyah, and the verse was revealed after the Battle of Tabuk. Furthermore, the pronoun in {among them} is specific to the hypocrites, even if the rest of the polytheists are appended to them by analogy. It is authentic in the hadith of the visitation that he sought permission from his Lord for that, and He permitted him. This permission, in my view, is used as evidence that she was of the monotheists, not of the polytheists, as is my choice. The method of inference is that He forbade him from standing at the graves of the disbelievers and permitted him to stand at the grave of his mother, which indicates that she was not of them, otherwise He would not have permitted him. The possibility of specification is contrary to the apparent meaning and requires explicit evidence. Perhaps he (upon him be peace and blessings) had a pause regarding the validity of the monotheism of those who were in the Pre-Islamic period until it was revealed to him (upon him be peace and blessings) of the correctness of that, so it is not a rebuttal that his seeking permission indicates otherwise; otherwise, he would have visited her without seeking permission.

In the matter of the permissibility of visiting the graves of disbelievers, there is a difference of opinion. Many of those who say it is not permissible interpreted "standing" as covering visitation. Those who permitted it used as evidence his (upon him be peace and blessings) saying: "I had forbidden you from visiting the graves, so visit them, for they remind you of the Hereafter," for he (upon him be peace and blessings) cited the reminder of the Hereafter as the reason for the visitation, and there is no difference in that between visiting the graves of Muslims and the graves of others. The full discussion is in its place, and the precaution in my view is not to visit the graves of the disbelievers.

{Indeed, they disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger} is a starting sentence brought to provide the reason for the prohibition, in the sense that prayer over the dead and honoring him is only for his sanctity, and they are far removed from that because they persisted in disbelief in Allah Almighty and His Messenger (may Allah be pleased with him) for the duration of their lives, and they died while they were {defiantly disobedient}, meaning rebellious in disbelief, exiting from its boundaries.