Al-W¥^idÏ's Asb¥b al-Nuz‰l - The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies ...

Asbab al-Nuzul
(O ye who believe! Ye have charge of your own souls. He who erreth cannot injure you if ye are
rightly guided) [5:105].
Al-Kalbi reported from Abu Salih who related that Ibn ‘Abbas said: “The Messenger of Allah sent a letter
to the people of Hajar, whose chief was Mundhir ibn Sawa, inviting them to Islam, or to pay the Jizyah if
they chose not to embrace Islam. When Mundhir ibn Sawa received the letter, he showed it to the Arabs,
Jews, Christians, Sabeans and Magians who were around him. They all agreed to pay the Jizyah and disliked
embracing Islam. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, wrote back to him,
saying: ‘As for the Arabs, do not accept from them except Islam otherwise they will have nothing but the
sword. As for the people of the Book and the Magians, accept the Jizyah from them. When this letter was
read to them, the Arabs embraced Islam while the people of the Book and the Magians agreed to pay the
Jizyah. The hypocrites among the Arabs said: ‘How strange from Muhammad! He claims that Allah has
sent him to fight all people until they surrender to Allah and does not accept the Jizyah except from the
people of the Book. But we only see that he has accepted from the idolaters of the people of Hajar that
which he had rejected from the Arab idolaters’. Allah, exalted is He, then revealed (O ye who believe! Ye
have charge of your own souls. He who erreth cannot injure you if ye are rightly guided), i.e. who errs from
amongst the people of the Book”.
(O ye who believe! Let there be witnesses between you…) [5:106].
Abu Sa‘id ibn Abi Bakr al-Razi informed us> Abu ‘Amr ibn Hamdan> Abu Ya‘la> al-Harith ibn Shurayh>
Yahya ibn Zakariyya ibn Abi Za’idah> Muhammad ibn Abu’l-Qasim> ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Sa‘id ibn Jubayr>
his father> Ibn ‘Abbas who said: “Tamim al-Dari and ‘Adiyy ibn Badda’ used to come to Mecca. On one
occasion, a man from Quraysh, from Banu Sahm, travelled with the two of them. However, this man
died in a land where there was not a single Muslim and he had to entrust them with his belongings, with
the understanding that they were to be given to his family. When the two of them arrived, they gave his
belongings to his family but kept to themselves a silver bowl adorned with layers of gold. They denied
having seen this bowl when they were asked about it. The two men were taken to the Prophet, Allah
bless him and give him peace, who asked them to swear that they neither saw the bowl nor did they
keep it. When they swore, he let them go. Later this bowl was found with some of the people of Mecca
who said that they had bought it from Tamim al-Dari and ‘Adiyy ibn Badda’. The heirs of the man from
Banu Sahm took the bowl and two men from among them swore that the bowl belonged to their man,
that their testimony is truer than the testimony of the other two men and that they did not transgress.
These two verses were revealed about this event (O ye who believe! Let there be witnesses between you)
up to the end”. 38
38
Durr, :220-221.
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