Surah Al-Anfal 8:29-37 - Quran Translation Commentary

29. O you who believe! If you fear Allah, He will grant you Criterion (to judge between right and wrong)⁴⁰, and will rid you of your evils, and will forgive you.⁴¹ Allah is of great bounty.

30. And (O prophet! remember the time) when the infidels were plotting against you so that they might confine you, or might kill you, or might banish you;⁴² they were plotting and Allah (also) was planning, and Allah is the best of planners⁴³.

31. And when our revelations were recited to them, they said: “we have heard. If we wish we can produce the like of this. It is nothing but fables of the ancients.”

32. And when they said: “O Allah ! If this indeed is the truth from You, then rain down stones on us from the sky, or bring down some other painful punishment.” ⁴⁴

33. And Allah was not to punish them when you were in their midst,⁴⁵ nor does He punish them if they are asking for forgiveness.⁴⁶

34. But now what (excuse) have they that Allah should not punish them, when they debar (worshippers) from the Masjid-i- Haram (Sacred Mosque), though they are not its guardians! Its guardians can be only those who fear Allah⁴⁷, but most of them do not know.

35. And their prayers at the House (of Allah) are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. So now taste⁴⁸ the punishment, because you disbelieved.⁴⁹

36. Verily those who disbelieve spend their wealth in preventing (men) from the path of Allah. They will continue spend their wealth, but they rue it, and in the end they will be overcome⁵⁰. Those who disbelieve will be driven to Hell.⁵¹

37. In order that Allah may separate the impure from the pure, put the impure, one upon another, heap them together and cast them into Hell.⁵² These very people are the losers.

Commentary

40. That is: He will create in you the ability to discriminate between what is right and wrong, then at every turn of life you will be able to see which path is straight and which is crooked and in every delicate situation your insight will guide you to truth.

In the affairs of life the people of faith are confronted with new problems. They also have to pass through varying types of trials. On such occasions, the practical steps that are to be taken are to be decided upon in the light of the guiding principles of Quran and Sunnah. On these occasions the internal insight helps in coming to the right decision and this insight develops from leading a righteous life in fear of Allah. This insight and this power of discrimination has been referred to here as ‘Furqan’ (Criterion).

41. If a man leads a righteous life, then Allah rids him of his evils, that is he removes the stains of his sins, and guides him to reform himself. Thus virtues and good qualities manifest themselves in his character, and what little sins he might have committed are forgiven by Allah, by His grace.

42. It refers to those conspiracies of the Quraish, which they were hatching in Makkah against the prophet (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa sallam). In the meeting that they held in Darun Nadwah, different proposals were considered. Someone had suggested that he should be taken as a captive, another had suggested that he should be banished from Makkah. Finally, it was decided unanimously to kill him. The modus operandi for this heinous act was decided to be: that a youth be selected from every tribe, and all these youths should attack him simultaneously and kill him. In this way the charge of killing him will be distributed over all the tribes, and the tribe of the prophet, Bani Hashim, would not be able to take revenge from all, therefore, they would be compelled to take blood money (compensation). This was the proposal of Abu Jahl, and according to this. proposal all the youths surrounded Prophet’s house one night. But Allah had informed him earlier, and therefore, he had left his house before they could do anything, and thus their conspiracy failed.

He left his house quietly. He took shelter in a cave, called ‘Thaur’ for three days. Thereafter he migrated to Madina. This event marks the beginning of the Hijra (Hejira) Year, (A.H.). (This event is recorded in Seerat Ibn Hasham in detail, ‘page92, Volume II).

43. Quraish had conspired to kill the prophet, but Allah had so planned that they could not harm him physically in the slightest way. He reached Madina safely. This migration proved to be very beneficial for the Muslims and from there onwards the avenues of success and progress were opened for them.

44. In Bukhari it is mentioned that these words were uttered by the Quraish chief, Abu Jahl, and in other narratives they are ascribed to Nadhar bin Harith. In fact this was not a prayer, but were the words uttered by them in their passions of anger against the prophet and his religion.

45. That is: As long as Allah’s Prophet was present in Makkah, Allah’s punishment could not visit it. because Allah sends down His punishment on a township only when that township cannot tolerate the presence of His Messenger therein, requiring the prophet to migrate from there.

46. That is: After the migration of the Prophet, there was only one way in which they can be saved from the Divine punishment, and that is that they should seek Allah’s forgiveness. In other words, they should embrace Islam.

47. Only those persons can deserve to be the protectors or guardians or trustees of the House of Allah, who are righteous and who fear God. And only those persons can be said to fear God who believe in Him, in monotheism, and who have faith in His guidance. How can Polytheists and disbelievers be its trustees. when the very purpose of construction of that House was to worship Him and to propagate monotheism, and when its builder Prophet Ibrahim himself. was the standard- bearer of pure and unalloyed. monotheism.

It means that the polytheists who had unlawfully occupied the Sacred Mosque and who were preventing Muslims from performing the pilgrimage rightly deserved the Divine punishment on account of their aggression, for which if Allah vanquished them at the hands of the Muslims. it will be absolutely justified.

48. For explanation, please see Note No. 5, Surah Ma’oon.

49. The blow that the idolaters received at Badr was an instalment of the Divine punishment.

It is not necessary that Allah’s punishment should manifest itself in the form of an earthquake or storm. It can come in the form of destruction of war, and it is a fact that all the battles that were fought, from. Badr to Hunain, the destruction and depredations of war were the lot of the infidels only.

50. That is: In the battle of disbelief and Islam, defeat is the destiny of the infidels. They are trying their best to stem the onward march of Islam and they are spending their wealth extravagantly, but the result of all this would be nothing but regrets for them and they would rue it.

51. That is: Those who would stick to their disbelief till the last, they would be driven to the Hell.

52. Impure or unclean means the one who is tarnished with the dirt of disbelief, and pure and clean are those who have attained the cleanliness and purity of faith.

On the Day of Judgment Allah will separate the infidels from the faithful people, and then gathering all kinds of infidels together He will cast the entire heap of them into the Hellfire.