ﲶ ﲷ ﲸ ﲹ ﲺ ﲻ ﲼ ﲽ ﲾ ﲿ ﳀ ﳁ ﳂ ﳃ ﳄ ﳅ ﳆ ﳇ ﳈ ﳉ ﳊ ﳋ ﳌ ﳍ ﳎ ﳏ ﳐ ﳑ ﳒ ﳓ ﳔ ﳕ ﳖ ﳗ
You will find others who wish to obtain security from you and [to] obtain security from their people. Every time they are returned to [the influence of] disbelief, they fall back into it. So if they do not withdraw from you or offer you peace or restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you overtake them. And those - We have made for you against them a clear authorization.
Tafsir
Verse range: 4:91
The exegetes said: They are a people from Asad and Ghatafan. When they came to Medina, they would embrace Islam and make covenants, their goal being to secure safety from the Muslims. Once they returned to their people, they would revert to disbelief and break their covenants. **{Every time they are returned to the Fitnah (strife)}**: Every time their people called them to fight the Muslims, **{they were plunged back into it}**. This means they were returned overcome and inverted into it. This is a metaphor for the intensity of their persistence in disbelief and enmity towards the Muslims, because whoever falls into something inverted finds it difficult to get out.
Then the Almighty said: {But if they do not withdraw from you, and cease fighting you, and offer you peace, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them}.
The meaning is: If they do not withdraw from fighting you, do not seek peace from you, and do not restrain their hands from harming you, then seize them and kill them wherever you come across them. The majority held that this indicates that if they withdraw from fighting us, seek peace from us, and restrain their hands from harming us, it is not permissible for us to fight or kill them. This is similar to the Almighty's saying: {Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes—from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them} (Al-Mumtahanah: 8), and His saying: {Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you} (Al-Baqarah: 190). Thus, the command to fight is specified only for those who fight us, not for those who do not fight us.
Know that this discourse is constructed upon the conditionality implied by the word in (if), which relates to the absence of the condition when the condition is not met. We have explained this situation in our commentary on His saying: {If you avoid the major sins which you are forbidden} (An-Nisa: 31).
Then He said: {And We have made for you against them a clear authority}.
There are two interpretations regarding the clear authority (sultan mubeen):
**{And it is not for a believer to kill a believer except by mistake. And whoever kills a believer by mistake – then the freeing of a believing slave and a blood-money payment presented to his family, unless they give [it] up as charity. But if he was from a people hostile to you and he was a believer, then [the penalty is] the freeing of a believing slave; and if he was from a people with whom you have a treaty, then a blood-money payment presented to his family and the freeing of a believing slave. And whoever does not find [one], then [as an expiation] two consecutive months of fasting, a repentance from Allah. And Allah is ever Knowing and Wise}**.
