Surah Al-Kafirun 109:1-6 - Quran Translation Commentary

2. Ibn `Abbas says that the Quraysh promised the Prophet that they would give him any amount of wealth and any number of women he wished if he would give up deriding their idols. If he could promise that, they were prepared for a compromise on a single condition that promised to be of benefit to him and to them. He asked them what it was. They said he would worship their idols for a year and they will worship his Lord for a year. The Prophet told them he would wait for a suitable reply from His Lord and Allah revealed this chapter. He also revealed other verses in addition such as (39: 64-66),

“Tell them. Do you suggest I worship other than Allah, O ignorant people...” until ... “therefore worship (Him) and be of the grateful.”

(This report is not too strong because of a minor problem: Sayyid Ibrahim in Shawkani).

According to another report, more trustworthy, coming from Sa`id b. Mina’, a freed slave of al-Bakhtari, Walid ibn al-Mughira, `As b. Wa’il, Aswad ibn al-Muttalib and Umayyah b. Khalf had gone to the Prophet with a similar proposition. In response Allah revealed this surah after which they lost all hopes of a compromise (Ibn Jarir, Zamakhshari, Razi, Qurtubi).

3. Asad observes: “... the particle ma ('what') alludes, on the one hand, to all positive concepts and ethical values - e.g., belief in God and the believer’s self-surrender to Him - and, on the other, to false objects of worship and false values, such as man’s belief in his own supposed “self-sufficiency.”

4. The God of Islam: “What these verses mean to say is that the God of qualities and attributes that I worship is not the God of qualities and attributes that you worship. This makes for all the difference between the religion that the Prophet (saws) brought and the religion of the rest of the peoples. The concept he gave of God is totally different from the concepts they hold. For instance, some of them believe in a God who created the world in six days and then needed to rest on the seventh day; who is not the Lord of the worlds but the Lord of the Israelites; who is related to a certain race in a way he is not related to others; who wrestles with Jacob and cannot defeat him; who has a son called `Uzayr. Others have a God who has a solitary son named Jesus Christ; who, for the salvation of others’ sins sends His own son to the cross. There are others whose God has spouses and offspring, but all females. There are some whose God incarnates Himself and takes the form of men, coming down to earth to live like them. There are others whose God is the Contingent Being, the Necessarily Existent, or the First Cause, who after giving the universe the first push, has disengaged Himself so that the system now works by itself, automatically, following certain laws, a system in which neither man has any contact with Him nor He with man. In other words those others that believe in a God, do not believe in that One God Who is the Creator, Prime Mover, Sustainer and Lord of all being, Who has not only created the universe, but also runs it and whose command alone does it; Who has no defects, no weaknesses and Who does not err; Who is above all similitude and above any incarnation, and in no need of any partners or associate... There isn’t anyone on this earth who worships a Lord of these Qualities and Attributes save Whom Muhammad worshipped and his followers do today. Even if the others worship a God, it is not the real God, rather a God of their own invention (who has no existence in reality)” - Mawdudi.

5. According to most scholars the second and third verses are to be understood in the past tense and the fourth and fifth verses should be understood in the future tense. (This is the opinion of Bukhari: Ibn Kathir). But according to others they have been repeated for emphasis (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir). A third opinion is that the second and third verses express the existing situation, while the fourth and fifth deny any future possibility (Ibn Kathir).

6. In addition to the apparent meaning, it could mean, 'to you your rewards and to me my rewards in accordance with the religions you and me follow.’ Further, this verse does not abrogate jihad (Qurtubi).

According to Imam Shafe`i, in lumping together the followers of various religions in the verse, “to you your religion” the implication is that all the other religions besides Islam are one religion and so their followers may inherit each other. (So that, for example, a Christian son may inherit his Buddhist father, but a Muslim son cannot). However, following a hadith Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal believed that Jews and Christians are exempt to the rule and cannot inherit from each other (Ibn Kathir).

Sayyid comments: (The last verse sums up the whole argument - of the impossibility of co-existence of faith and disbelief: Au.), which says, 'You have your religion and I have mine', meaning that you (disbelievers) and I (Muhammad) are very far apart, without any bridge to connect us - a complete distinction and a precise, intelligible demarcation.

“Such an attitude was essential then in order to expose the fundamental discrepancies in the essence of the two beliefs and doctrines, in the source of the two concepts and in the nature of the two paths of monotheism and polytheism, faith and disbelief. Faith on the one hand, is the way of life which directs man and the whole world towards Allah alone and determines for him the source of his religious concepts, laws, values, criteria, ethics and morals. That source is Allah and nobody else. Thus life proceeds for him accordingly, devoid of any form of polytheism which, on the other hand, represents another way of life entirely dissimilar to that of faith. The two never meet.”

(Consequently, for one who is taking the message of Islam to societies that exhibit the mixed traits):

“The existence of noble and base beliefs and thoughts in those societies may tempt the advocate of the Islamic system to hope for their quick return, thinking he may be able to strengthen the good aspects of their life and rightly correct undesirable features! This temptation is dangerously misleading. For Ignorance is nothing but Ignorance and Islam is altogether different from it. The only way to bridge the gulf between the two is for Ignorance to liquidate itself completely and substitute for all its laws, values, standards and concepts their Islamic counterparts.”

(Ibn al-Qayyim has – spread over ten pages - some very original and brilliant remarks to make about the surah that are straight from the heart and not, in the knowledge of the translator, based on anything in print. But, apart from the fact that the subtle points require elaboration, a proper appreciation will require some knowledge of the Arabic language. Therefore, even a summary is difficult to attempt. Those who know the language might look into the original writing in Bada’i` al-Fawa’id, vol. 1, p. 133-142 or into Tafsir Ibn al-Qayyim, as collected by Muhammad Uways Al-Nadwi. The reading will also give some idea of the two approaches, the modern and the classic, and how, lacking which, the modern approach has been reduced to superficiality). p

Introductory Remarks

This surah is a natural corollary to surah Al-Ikhlas as tawhid has two parts: first, denial of all else besides Allah, and second, acknowledgement of Allah as the sole God. The testimony la ilaha illa Allah also consists of these two parts: denial and acknowledgement. This surah has the denial of all besides Allah, while surah al-Ikhlas qualifies the Lord that we are required to believe in (Ibn al-Qayyim).

According to Ibn `Abbas this was the last surah that was revealed as a whole and at one time. The statement is in Muslim (Qurtubi and others).

Merits of the Surah

According to a hadith (in Bazzar reported by Anas), the Prophet said: “Surah al-Nasr is equal to one fourth of the Qur’an (Ibn Kathir). See surah al-Zalzalah (no. 99) for fuller version of the hadith.

Period of Revelation

According to reports in Bazzar and Bayhaqi (in his Dala’il, as also in Ibn Abi Shaybah, `Abd b. Humayd, Abu Ya`la and Ibn Marduwayh: Shawkani), narrated by Ibn `Umar, this surah was revealed in Hajjatu ‘l-Wada` (the Farewell Pilgrimage), during the ayyam al-tashriq in Mina and the Prophet realized that it would be His last Pilgrimage (since he had completed his mission: Au.). Thereat he prodded his she-camel which went forward, until he pulled its reins and delivered the famous sermon (Ibn Kathir).

[Note: Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir and Shawkani have all quoted the above hadith without assigning a status to it: Au.].

Sabuni adds: Qurtubi has stated that the first word “idha” of the chapter should be understood as “qad” (meaning, certainly, surely, verily, etc.: Au.), since the surah was revealed much later to the appearance of the signs mentioned therein.

Bayhaqi has also recorded Ibn `Abbas as saying that when this surah was revealed the Prophet spoke to Fatimah and told her that he had been informed of his death. At that she cried. Then she smiled. (Later) she explained: “When he told me about his death I cried. Then he told me, 'Hold your ground, for you would be the first of the family to join me.’ At that I smiled.” Nasa’i has also recorded this hadith but without naming Fatimah (Ibn Kathir).