Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 85 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:85

ثُمَّ أَنتُمْ هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ تَقْتُلُونَ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَتُخْرِجُونَ فَرِيقًا مِّنكُم مِّن دِيَـٰرِهِمْ تَظَـٰهَرُونَ عَلَيْهِم بِٱلْإِثْمِ وَٱلْعُدْوَٰنِ وَإِن يَأْتُوكُمْ أُسَـٰرَىٰ تُفَـٰدُوهُمْ وَهُوَ مُحَرَّمٌ عَلَيْكُمْ إِخْرَاجُهُمْ ۚ أَفَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِبَعْضِ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ وَتَكْفُرُونَ بِبَعْضٍ ۚ فَمَا جَزَآءُ مَن يَفْعَلُ ذَٰلِكَ مِنكُمْ إِلَّا خِزْىٌ فِى ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا ۖ وَيَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ يُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰٓ أَشَدِّ ٱلْعَذَابِ ۗ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَـٰفِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ

“Then, you are those [same ones who are] killing one another and evicting a party of your people from their homes, cooperating against them in sin and aggression. And if they come to you as captives, you ransom them, although their eviction was forbidden to you. So do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part? Then what is the recompense for those who do that among you except disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment. And Allāh is not unaware of what you do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They fought their own people for their allies, then ransomed the captives as scripture required, keeping one command and breaking the rest.

A reflection

The raid and the ransom

A factory owner closes his town's last big plant and moves production abroad. The share price rises. A year later he opens the food bank's new warehouse, where some of his former workers now queue, and he cuts the ribbon.

The commentators describe the situation behind this ayah in detail. Before Islam, the Jewish tribes of Madinah were allied to the two rival Arab tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj. When those two fought, each Jewish tribe fought beside its allies, against fellow Jews. They killed one another and drove one another from their homes. Then, when the war ended, they collected money to ransom their own captives, because the Torah commanded it.

The Arabs around them noticed. 'How can you fight them and then ransom them?' The answer, as the commentators record it, is startlingly honest. 'We were commanded to ransom them, and forbidden to fight them. But we are ashamed to let our allies be humiliated.'

A classical theologian points out that they were not blamed for the ransom. Ransoming was obedience. They were blamed for the contradiction: keeping one part of the covenant and breaking the others, sometimes against the very same person.

The commentaries preserve a report that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb heard such passages as addressed to his own people. 'The Children of Israel have passed on,' he is reported to have said. 'It is you who are meant by these accounts.'

That is the honest way to read this ayah. It is a portrait of a people who did generous things with one hand and harmful things with the other. Every community, ours included, has done the same. The question is not only who did it then. It is what we are still ransoming while we raid.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.