As Muhammad's victory-speech continues, he draws a relationship between the believers faithfulness and their military success. The Quraish of Mecca lost, he says, because they opposed Allah and Allah's Prophet. Likewise, the Muslim army won because they obeyed Allah and His prophet.
Verse 25 tells the believers to Fear the Fitnah. Whats Fitnah? It depends on context, but generally Fitnah means contestation or, as Rodwell renders it, strife. In 2:191-193, Fitnah seems to refer to the expression of opposition to Allah. In 6:23 Fitnah refers to defensive arguments. Here, it seems to refer to expressions of disloyalty to Muhammad -- perhaps alluding to murmurs of disapproval which some soldiers made when Muhammad had revealed that they were going to attack the Meccan army instead of pursuing the caravan of Abu Sufyan.
Verse 26 is a word to the faithful community who had been with Muhammad from before the Hejira. Their lot in life had improved since those days of persecution.
Then the text re-addresses the Muslim army in general, instructing the soldiers to Betray not Allah and His Messenger. The idea may be that he was entrusting to them the task of nobly using their portions of the plunder. Verse 29 says that Allah will give them "Furqan," meaning that if/when they are tempted or tested, a solution will dawn upon them. An example of the provision of deliverance is given in v. 30, as Muhammad recalls the days before the Hejira when the leaders of Mecca had, after considering various options, agreed to do away with him.
In v. 31 Muhammad recollects what the Meccans -- especially Al-Nadr Ibn Harith, who was executed within hours of this "revelation" -- had said about his recitations: words to the effect of, Weve heard this before. We can do this sort of thing. You are just re-telling ancient legends. This charge was leveled against Muhammad again and again; he mentions it several times (in 6:25, 16:24, 23:83, 25:4-5, 27:68, 46:17, 68:15, and 83:13). Rather than offer a refutation of the charge, Muhammad explains that Allah let the Meccans get away with that sort of thing because he (Muhammad) had been in their midst, but now that he was separated from them, Allah was punishing them.
Muhammad discerned that despite his victory at Badr, the Meccans would continue to oppose him. He predicts their downfall, and sentences the disbelievers to hell. (As it turned out, the Meccans who were at this point his fiercest opponents eventually became Muslims).
Verse 39 merits a close look: And fight them until there is no more Fitnah and the religion will all be for Allah alone. But if they cease, then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do. The them is the Quraish of Mecca. The Fitnah may be one of three things:
(A) Strife among the Muslims. Taken this way, it means that the Muslim army was to fight until it was a sure thing that each soldier would receive a satisfactory amount of plunder.
(B) Strife between Muslims and non-Muslims. Taken this way, it means that the Muslim army was to fight until the Meccans agreed to a peace treaty with Muhammad that acknowledged his governmental authority. (One might wonder why Muhammad did not make a treaty with his captives then and there. The answer is probably that since Abu Jahl had been killed in battle, authority in Mecca was accorded to Abu Sufyan, who was alive and well, and Muhammad realized that Abu Sufyan would nullify any treaty the prisoners made.)
(C) Excuses for resistance on the part of non-Muslims.
Of those three possibilities, the primary meaning here is most likely B, especially in consideration of the parallel-passage in 2:193. Muslim interpreters tend to take this to mean that jihad should cease once non-Muslims recognize the authority of Islamic institutions (by ceasing to resist them, and by paying the jizyah-tax), but if they stop doing so, jihad ought to be resumed. They also tend to categorize an individuals conversion from Islam to Christianity (or some other religion) as an act of Fitnah.
In v. 41 the text gets back to the subject of the distribution of the plunder from the Battle of Badr: Muhammad took 20% to spend on his own household and the poor, and distributed the rest among the soldiers.
Note: the word "Furqan," used in v. 29 to describe illumination, is applied in v. 41 to describe the day of the Battle of Badr. The implication is that the victory of Muhammad's troops at Badr was intended by Allah to be illuminating evidence that Muhammad was a legitimate prophet.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
Verse 25 tells the believers to Fear the Fitnah. Whats Fitnah? It depends on context, but generally Fitnah means contestation or, as Rodwell renders it, strife. In 2:191-193, Fitnah seems to refer to the expression of opposition to Allah. In 6:23 Fitnah refers to defensive arguments. Here, it seems to refer to expressions of disloyalty to Muhammad -- perhaps alluding to murmurs of disapproval which some soldiers made when Muhammad had revealed that they were going to attack the Meccan army instead of pursuing the caravan of Abu Sufyan.
Verse 26 is a word to the faithful community who had been with Muhammad from before the Hejira. Their lot in life had improved since those days of persecution.
Then the text re-addresses the Muslim army in general, instructing the soldiers to Betray not Allah and His Messenger. The idea may be that he was entrusting to them the task of nobly using their portions of the plunder. Verse 29 says that Allah will give them "Furqan," meaning that if/when they are tempted or tested, a solution will dawn upon them. An example of the provision of deliverance is given in v. 30, as Muhammad recalls the days before the Hejira when the leaders of Mecca had, after considering various options, agreed to do away with him.
In v. 31 Muhammad recollects what the Meccans -- especially Al-Nadr Ibn Harith, who was executed within hours of this "revelation" -- had said about his recitations: words to the effect of, Weve heard this before. We can do this sort of thing. You are just re-telling ancient legends. This charge was leveled against Muhammad again and again; he mentions it several times (in 6:25, 16:24, 23:83, 25:4-5, 27:68, 46:17, 68:15, and 83:13). Rather than offer a refutation of the charge, Muhammad explains that Allah let the Meccans get away with that sort of thing because he (Muhammad) had been in their midst, but now that he was separated from them, Allah was punishing them.
Muhammad discerned that despite his victory at Badr, the Meccans would continue to oppose him. He predicts their downfall, and sentences the disbelievers to hell. (As it turned out, the Meccans who were at this point his fiercest opponents eventually became Muslims).
Verse 39 merits a close look: And fight them until there is no more Fitnah and the religion will all be for Allah alone. But if they cease, then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do. The them is the Quraish of Mecca. The Fitnah may be one of three things:
(A) Strife among the Muslims. Taken this way, it means that the Muslim army was to fight until it was a sure thing that each soldier would receive a satisfactory amount of plunder.
(B) Strife between Muslims and non-Muslims. Taken this way, it means that the Muslim army was to fight until the Meccans agreed to a peace treaty with Muhammad that acknowledged his governmental authority. (One might wonder why Muhammad did not make a treaty with his captives then and there. The answer is probably that since Abu Jahl had been killed in battle, authority in Mecca was accorded to Abu Sufyan, who was alive and well, and Muhammad realized that Abu Sufyan would nullify any treaty the prisoners made.)
(C) Excuses for resistance on the part of non-Muslims.
Of those three possibilities, the primary meaning here is most likely B, especially in consideration of the parallel-passage in 2:193. Muslim interpreters tend to take this to mean that jihad should cease once non-Muslims recognize the authority of Islamic institutions (by ceasing to resist them, and by paying the jizyah-tax), but if they stop doing so, jihad ought to be resumed. They also tend to categorize an individuals conversion from Islam to Christianity (or some other religion) as an act of Fitnah.
In v. 41 the text gets back to the subject of the distribution of the plunder from the Battle of Badr: Muhammad took 20% to spend on his own household and the poor, and distributed the rest among the soldiers.
Note: the word "Furqan," used in v. 29 to describe illumination, is applied in v. 41 to describe the day of the Battle of Badr. The implication is that the victory of Muhammad's troops at Badr was intended by Allah to be illuminating evidence that Muhammad was a legitimate prophet.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
