An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 89 of 176

An-Nisa 4:89

وَدُّوا۟ لَوْ تَكْفُرُونَ كَمَا كَفَرُوا۟ فَتَكُونُونَ سَوَآءً ۖ فَلَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ أَوْلِيَآءَ حَتَّىٰ يُهَاجِرُوا۟ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ فَإِن تَوَلَّوْا۟ فَخُذُوهُمْ وَٱقْتُلُوهُمْ حَيْثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمْ ۖ وَلَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ مِنْهُمْ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا

“They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allāh. But if they turn away [i.e., refuse], then seize them and kill them [for their betrayal] wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Some want you lowered to their level; trust follows what a person leaves behind; and the hard command here belongs to a bounded wartime setting.

A reflection

Who is 'them', and what comes next?

Few lines in this surah are quoted out of place as often as 'seize them and kill them wherever you find them'. Read alone, it sounds like a command against anyone. Read where it sits, it is something else.

First, who are 'them'? The ayah before it names the people the believers had split over. Both Sahihs place that split after some men deserted the march to Uhud. Other reports in the commentaries speak of people who professed Islam but backed the idolaters of Makkah against the believers. In every account these are people in an active war, on the other side of it.

Second, the condition. 'If they turn away.' An early authority, quoted in the commentaries, explains: turn away from emigrating, that is, refuse to leave the enemy's camp. Another says: if they openly declare their disbelief. Even the first verb is narrower than it sounds. One commentary glosses 'seize them' as taking them captive, noting that a captive was called the one taken.

Third, and most often cut off, the very next ayah. It exempts those who join a people with whom the believers have a treaty. It exempts those who come with hearts unwilling to fight either side. And it closes: if they withdraw, do not fight you and offer you peace, Allah has given you no way against them (4:90).

Imagine a newspaper quoting a judge's words: he should spend his life in prison. The full sentence ran: if he had done what he is charged with, which the evidence shows he did not. The quoted words are accurate. The meaning is false.

So the honest summary is narrow. In a war already under way, people who had joined the enemy's ranks and refused to leave them were treated as combatants. Those who sought a treaty or neutrality were protected by the next line. This reflection gives no ruling for today. It asks only that the ayah be read whole.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.