Volume 8 Surah 9 - Enjoy Islam

SŪRAH 9Al-Tawbah(The Repentance)PrologueRevealed in Madinah, this sūrah is one of the last, if not actually the last 1 Qur’ānicrevelation. Hence, it contains final rulings on relations between the Muslimcommunity and other people. It also includes the classification of the Muslimcommunity itself, establishing its values together with a full description and outlineof the status of each of its groups or classes. 2As such, the sūrah has a particular importance in clarifying the nature of theIslamic method of action, its different steps and stages. However, we need to reviewits final rulings in the light of the provisional ones given in earlier sūrahs. Such areview will show this method of action to be at one and the same time both flexibleand firm. Yet without such a holistic reading, rules, pictures and judgements becomevery confused. This is what happens whenever verses that outline provisionalrulings are taken to be final, while the verses giving final rulings are read in such away as to match provisional ones, particularly in relation to jihād and the relationsbetween the Muslim community and other groups. We pray to God to enable us toset the record straight and present a full and clear picture, both in this Prologue andin the discussion of the sūrah and its passages.1 According to the weightier opinion, Sūrah 110, Victory, was the last to be revealed.2 The classes we are referring to here are not the same as the narrow sense of the term ‘socialclasses’suggests. These are classes based on purely Islamic values, as in the case of the very earlyMuslims among the Muhājirīn and the Anşār, the People of Badr, and those who pledged their lives tothe Prophet, those who fought and donated generously before the al-Hudaybiyyah peace treaty orafter it, and, by contrast, the people who did not join campaigns of jihād, the hypocrites, etc.1