al-Mumtaḥana 60:9

Innamā yanhākumullāhu ʿani'lladhīna qātalūkum fi'd-dīni wa akhrajūkum min diyārikum wa ẓāharū ʿalā ikhrājikum an tawallawhum, wa man yatawallahum fa-ulāʾika humu'ẓ-ẓālimūn

"God forbids you only to take as allies those who have fought you over religion, driven you from your homes and backed your being driven out. Whoever takes them as allies — those are the wrongdoers."

The sentence begins with إِنَّمَا. This particle states in Arabic restriction (ḥaṣr): "only, solely, none but".

The consequence of this is the most important feature of the verse: the scope of the prohibition is thereby closed. The eighth verse had said what is not forbidden; the ninth says what is forbidden, and by putting innamā at its head states that the list is closed. Things falling outside it cannot enter the scope of the prohibition.

Set the two verses side by side:

And now attend to the third row of the table. This is the place that lights up the whole sūra.

What is left free in the eighth verse and what is forbidden in the ninth are not the same thing. What is left free: birr and qisṭ. What is forbidden: tawallī.

That is, the two verses are not answering the question "to whom may one behave well and to whom not". They are establishing two separate categories of behaviour:

• Doing good and dealing justly — its measure: the deed of the other party. If he does not fight and does not drive out, it is free.
• Walāya — its measure: again the deed of the other party. If he fights and drives out, it is forbidden.

And the point to attend to: the ninth verse does not leave free the walāya with the group of the eighth verse; it says nothing at all about them. Where the verse is silent one must not speak. But this much is certain: to do good to someone who does not fight and to back someone who does fight are not, in this sūra, parts of the same discussion.

And here the analysis established at the first verse becomes settled.

The forbidden act is stated plainly and on its own: أَن تَوَلَّوْهُمْ — "that you should take them as allies". The root again is و-ل-ي.

In this sentence there is no mawadda. No affection. No feeling. Only walāya.

In the first verse the prohibition had come together with a circumstantial clause (tulqūna ilayhim bi'l-mawaddati), and that clause described the concrete form of the event. Here the sūra lays its prohibition down again without the circumstantial clause, in its pure state. And its pure state is this: do not take them as allies.

This is the text interpreting itself. Where a ruling is laid down twice and in the second an element drops out, it is understood that the element that dropped out is not an essential part of the ruling.

In the eighth verse there were two deeds; here a third is added.

ظَاهَرَ — the root ظ-ه-ر: the back. From the same root come ẓahr (the back), ẓāhir (what is visible — that which has its front and not its back turned), ẓuhr (noon — the hour at which the day is most distinct).

زَاهَرَ/ظَاهَرَ in the mufāʿala pattern is to set back to back: to back someone, to support him, to lean one's back against him. The English idiom "to back someone" is surprisingly close to the concrete sense of the word.

Why does the adding of this third deed matter? Because it covers one further category: the one who does not do it himself but supports it. He may not have fought, he may not with his own hand have driven anyone out; but he has backed the work of driving out.

The verse thus does not limit responsibility to the agent of the deed. And in doing so it again uses a deed — not an intention, a sympathy, an opinion. Ẓāharū is an observable support.

There is this too: that the root of the word should be "the back" looks to the same place as the notion of walī in the backbone of the sūra. A walī is the party against whom you lean your back; muẓāhara is giving one's back to someone. In describing what it forbids (walāya), the verse names what the other side does among themselves (muẓāhara) with a word from the same semantic field. That is, the matter is a single one: who stands behind whom.

ظَالِم — the root ظ-ل-م: the concrete sense of the root is darkness (ẓulma), and its second sense is to put a thing somewhere other than its place. There is a well-known saying in the Arabic language: "man ashbaha abāhu fa-mā ẓalama" — he who resembles his father has not wronged; that is, he has not put a thing out of its place.

This second sense explains the ruling of the verse directly. Walāya is a position — and the verse calls the giving of that position to the wrong person "wrongdoing". That is, the offence is not an offence of affection but an offence of displacement: in the place of the one who ought to be backed, the other side has been put.

The pattern فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ states in Arabic restriction and specification: "these, precisely these, are the wrongdoers". The repetition of the pronoun (hum) reinforces the ruling.

These two verses are the clearest measure the Qurʾān establishes on the subject of outward relations, and can be summarised thus:

The line of division runs not through belief but through deed.

And this is no ordinary sentence about tolerance; it is important because it lays down an ascertainable measure. A rule that takes belief as its measure produces endless dispute in application: who really believes, whose belief is sound, where the boundaries lie. A rule that takes deed as its measure reduces the question to be asked to two: did he fight you, did he drive you from your home.

There is this too: the measure's lying in deed leaves the measure in the other party's hands. A community determines by its own behaviour how it will be treated. This is the strongest thing the eighth verse quietly establishes.

One last caveat: these two verses must be read together, and if they are separated both are corrupted. If only the eighth verse is read, the warning at the head of the sūra is erased. If only the ninth verse is read, the area the eighth opens is closed. The text has placed the two side by side; the reading must be so as well.