O You Who Believe

24)

"O you who have believed, when you go forth [to fight] in the cause of Allah, investigate; and do not say to one who gives you [a greeting of] peace "You are not a believer," aspiring for the goods of worldly life; for with Allah are many acquisitions. You [yourselves] were like that before; then Allah conferred His favor upon you, so investigate. Indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted."

[An-Nisa 4:94]

In the early days of Islam, Assalam-u-alaikum (peace be upon you) was a symbol of recognition for Muslims. When a Muslim met another Muslim, he greeted him with this salutation, as if to say, "I belong to your own community; I am your friend and well-wisher. I have nothing but peace and security for you; so you should not show enmity towards me nor fear enmity and harm from me." It was like a "pass-word" used in the army while passing through a line of guards at night so as to discern between friends and foes.

The importance of the salutation of peace as a symbol of recognition was specially great at that time because there was no apparent mark of distinction between a Muslim Arab and a non-Muslim Arab, as they wore the same kind of dress and spoke the semi language. Still a difficulty arose when the Muslims attacked some clan and a local Muslim also became the target of attack. Then he would cry out, Asalam-u-alaikum or La llaha illallah (there is no god but Allah). But the attacking Muslims would suspect him to be a disbeliever who was using the password as a trick merely to save his life. They would, therefore, often kill him and take possession of his belongings as spoils. Although the Holy Prophet would severely admonish the offenders on such occasions, yet there was a recurrence of such incidents. Then Allah solved the difficulty in this verse, which means, "You have no right to judge cursorily that the man, who is declaring himself to be a Muslim, is telling a lie merely to save his life. It is equally possible that he may be speaking the truth, or telling a lie, and one cannot know the reality without making a thorough investigation. Thus, while there is a chance of letting off a disbeliever by accepting his salutations of peace as genuine, there is also the more horrible chance of killing an innocent Believer. In any case, it is far better to let off a disbeliever by mistake than to kill a Believer by error.

In the second half of the verse, Allah says, there was a time when you yourselves were scattered as individuals among different clans of disbelievers. You were then hiding your Islam for fear of oppression and persecution and you could offer no other proof of your Faith except by an oral expression. Now it is the bounty of Allah that you are enjoying community life and are able to raise the banner of Islam against the disbelievers. The right way of showing gratitude to Allah for this bounty is to show kindness and leniency to those Muslims who are still in the same state in which you were before this.

The word 'investigate' is used twice. It is hence asserted by Allah that one must take action after the truth is confirmed. When in doubt, one mustn't raise the sword at the other because letting a bad person off the hook when in doubt is way better than killing a righteous person.

Similarly, once an athiest questioned an Islamic scholar, "Wouldn't you be disappointed after leading a righteous life in fear of God and wake up after death and realize there were to be no God?" (Nauzubillah)

The scholar replied, "If there were no God (nauzubillah) and I died on the right path, it would be a better feeling than dying a sinful death and waking up to One God."

In the end, Allah says that He is well aware of what we do so in any case, before doing any action, one must reconsider while fearing Allah. Would Allah be happy if I did this? Would he be pleased? If so, then it is worth it. No matter what one's self desires, it is not worth it if it displeases Allah.

Things we learnt:

> Going forth in a battle must be purely for the sake of Allah and during battle, one must not take the life of a person who could potentially be righteous. It is better to let go and investigate before wrongfully taking the life of a believer.

> One cannot judge how righteous the next person is. This can be implied in today's world. When we note a person dressed immodestly, we immediately think in a negative manner about that person and think that Allah must not like that person (nauzubillah) but in reality, the knowledge is with Allah alone and no one can judge how close a person is to Allah other than Allah Himself hence we must hold back from negative conclusions about people. We should think of ourselves as the lowest of all others and start focusing on ourself. We should start working for Islam and Allah from level zero and even if we attain a high level, we mustn't think highly of ourself.

> It is the favour of Allah that He allowed us to be Muslim, Alhamdullilah and blessed us with the chance to practice Islam hence we must always be thankful.

> We should not judge someone for having bad faith because at one point in our lives, we were low on faith too and it was undoubtedly Allah Who picked us from the darkness and bestowed us with light. We can never choose whom Allah wants to guide and we can never know whom Allah wants to guide. Hence instead of launching judgements at the other, we should pray for Allah's guidance to reach that person and ofcourse, ourself.

> Allah is the Knower of all things. Nothing is out of His sight. If the fear of Allah is planted in the heart, it grows like a beautiful and righteous flower. We must strive for excellence in our religion with fear of Allah. We must never forget that Allah is watching.

May Allah guide us to the right path.
Ameen.
Wama alayna illal balaghul mubeen.