Fighting in the Sacred Month

When the men of the sariyyah came back to Madīnah, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) told them, "I did not tell you to fight in the holy month" — he did not give them those instructions — and the Muslims were reproaching the Companions, ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh and his people: who told you to fight in the sacred month, who told you to violate it? So these men of the sariyyah were in a very difficult situation. They were worried, they were very worried: what have we done, and what will this be considered in the eyes of Allah, the Almighty and Majestic? And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) refused to take the prisoners, and refused to take the caravan. So one can imagine how desperate these Companions would be: they had gone out, they had risked their lives, and then here they were, all that they had done was not accepted, and everybody was upset with them, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and the Companions alike, and Quraysh were taking advantage of this, and made a big deal out of it.

And then āyāt from the Qur'an were revealed, verse 217 from Sūrat al-Baqarah:

They ask you about the sacred month, about fighting therein. So people were asking, what is the ruling of Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, concerning fighting in the sacred month? So Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, says, "Fighting therein is a great sin." So what ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh and his men did was a great sin. Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, was saying that fighting in the sacred month is a great sin. But here Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, is putting things in perspective: yes, what the Companions had done in violating the sanctity of the sacred month was wrong, it was a great sin, but then Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, lists four other sins. Number one, averting the people away from the path of Allah — the people of Quraysh, on the other hand, were averting people from the path of Allah, standing between them and becoming Muslim. Number two, disbelief in Him — that is a great sin. Number three, preventing access to al-Masjid al-Ḥarām — the Muslims were not allowed to go to Makkah. Number four, the expulsion of its people from it — the Muhājirūn were driven out of Makkah. Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, says those sins are greater than what ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh did. So averting people from the way of Allah is a greater sin than killing in the sacred month; disbelieving in Allah is a greater sin than killing in the sacred month; preventing access to al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is a greater evil in the eyes of Allah than fighting in the sacred month; and the expulsion of people from Makkah, forcing them out of their land, is a greater sin in the eyes of Allah than fighting in the sacred month. So Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, is putting things in perspective. And then Allah says, wa-l-fitnatu akbaru min al-qatl, and fitnah — seducing people away from Islam — is greater than killing. Ibn Ḥazm says^*: they seduce a Muslim until he gives up Islam, and Allah says that is worse than fighting in the sacred month. And then Allah speaks about the disbelievers: they will not stop fighting you until they turn you away from your religion, if they can, and whoever among you turns away from his religion and dies a disbeliever — those are the ones whose works have been ruined in this world and the hereafter.

This āyah is clearing up the minds of the people. It is telling them: look at what ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh and his people did, and look, on the other hand, at what the disbelievers of Quraysh had been doing for thirteen years. One should not just make a big deal about what ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh did and completely forget the sins of the people of Quraysh. Even though what ʿAbdullāh ibn Jaḥsh did was wrong, what the people of Quraysh had been doing outweighs all of that.