Volume 8 Surah 9 - Enjoy Islam

Al-Tawbah (The Repentance) | RELATIONS WITH OTHER RELIGIONSTo describe the Christians’ hostile view of Islam we may quote the followingparagraph by a European author, George Brown, writing in 1944: 23We used to be warned against dangers posed by different nations, butexperience has shown that there is no cause for worry. We were warnedagainst the Jewish threat and the threat of the yellow races and the Bolshevikthreat. But none of these warnings has come true. We have found the Jews tobe very good friends, which means that anyone who persecutes them is ourenemy. We have also found out that the Bolsheviks are our allies. The yellowraces are being taken care of by powerful democracies. The only real threat isthat of Islam because of its dynamism and ability to spread and attract newfollowers. It is the only real obstacle that stands up to Western imperialism.We cannot go much further than this to review the various aspects of thedetermined war that continues to be launched by Christianity against Islam. We havereferred on various occasions to the nature of this age-long war and its variousaspects. The preceding remarks should be sufficient and further details may besought elsewhere.Let us now recall that, on the one hand, Islam represents a general declaration forthe liberation of mankind and that, on the other, the camp of jāhiliyyah the world overseeks to crush any implementation of this declaration. With this in mind, we realizethat the final rulings contained in this sūrah on the relationship between Islam andother camps are the cumulative and natural reaction to all these facts. They are notlimited to a particular period or a special case. At the same time, the earlierprovisional rulings are partially abrogated, in the sense that they can beimplemented in situations and conditions similar to those which prevailed at thetime of their revelation. It is in the nature of Islam that real situations are faced withattitudes and actions that are suited to them.These final rulings, as they are stated in this sūrah, deal with a specific situationthat obtained in Arabia, and serve, in a sense, as a legislative prelude to the Tabūkcampaign, the central issue of the sūrah, which sought to confront the Byzantinemobilization close to the Arabian borders. But the attitude of the people of earlierrevelations and their hostility to Islam and the Muslim community were not theresult of any particular historical event, or limited to any stage. That is a permanentreality. They will continue to be at war with Islam until the Muslims have abandonedtheir faith altogether. This hostility and the war it launches will continue to be fed byall possible means. Hence, the rulings outlined in this sūrah remain in full effect,independence. In Sudan, a very large contingent of Christian missionaries were encouraging civilstrife, which forced the government of General Abboud to expel 300 missionaries. — Editor's note.23 As quoted by Musţafā Khãlidī and `Umar Farrūkh in Al-Tabshīr wal-Isti`mār fi al-Bilād al-`Arabīyyah.94