Loyalty to Allah, and Disavowal of Disbelief

The next matter is al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ — loyalty to Allah and His Messenger and the believers, and disassociating oneself from disbelief — and there are a few examples of it from Badr. Abū Bakr was on the Muslim side, and his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was on the side of the kuffār. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr, once he had become Muslim, told his father: O my father, I saw you on the day of Badr, but I would avoid you, because I did not want to attack you. Abū Bakr said: I did not see you, and if I had seen you, I would have pursued you and killed you. So Abū Bakr was willing to fight his own son for the sake of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. The account of Abū Ḥudhayfah and his father, ʿUtbah, whom he saw thrown into the well, has already been given.

Muṣʿab ibn ʿUmayr, and his brother Abū ʿAzīz, who was a prisoner of war: Muṣʿab passed by the Anṣār who were holding Abū ʿAzīz, and told them, tie his hands fast, tighten the ropes on him, because his mother is wealthy and she will ransom him for you. Subḥān Allāh, is this the sort of advice a brother should give — to the ones holding his own brother, hold him well, tighten the ropes that are tying him, because his mother will ransom him? His brother was amazed, and said: brother, is this how you treat me? Muṣʿab said, pointing to the Anṣār who were holding him: he is more my brother than you are. He was pointing to the men holding him, saying: these are my real brothers, you are not — these are my brothers because of Islam, and even though you are my blood brother, disbelief has separated us.

There is a further matter relating to walāʾ and barāʾah. There were some young men of Quraysh who had taken an interest in Islam, and had indeed become Muslim — sons of some of the noble families of Quraysh. Allah Almighty knows whether they became Muslim because they sincerely believed in Islam, or because it was, for them, a revolt against the status quo, and they were interested in it merely as something different, as can be seen among some of the young in any age, wanting to embrace something because it is different and sets them apart. So these were wealthy young men in Makkah, and they became Muslim: ʿAlī ibn Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Abū Qays ibn al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah, Abū Qays ibn al-Fākih, al-Ḥārith ibn Zamʿah, and al-ʿĀṣ ibn Munabbih.^**** These were all sons of the wealthy men of Quraysh. They became Muslim, but they could not withstand the demands of Islam, the sacrifice that Islam asks of a person, and so they stayed behind, and did not make hijrah. They were not willing — these were, in effect, spoiled young men — to go through the hassle of hijrah and all that it asked: Islam if it is convenient, but if it is going to cost too much, then it is forgotten. So they stayed behind, and in fact went out with their fathers and their tribe to the Battle of Badr, where, Ibn Hishām says, all of them were killed. Some of the Muslims said: well, they were Muslim, even if they did not want to go out and fight — so Allah, Mighty and Majestic, revealed verse 97 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ concerning them:

Indeed, those whom the angels take in death while wronging themselves — the angels will say, in what condition were you? They will say, we were oppressed in the land. The angels will say, was the earth of Allah not spacious enough for you to emigrate in it? Such people, their refuge is Hell, and it is an evil destination. What, then, do you think their fate is? These were Muslim — they were Muslim — but they did not go far enough in sacrificing for Islam. They stayed behind, and then they ended up being killed at Badr. Probably they never shot an arrow, probably they never struck with a sword; they simply went out in the army because they had to, a soldier called to duty. What, then, do you think their fate was? In his tafsīr of this āyah, Ibn Kathīr mentions, on the authority of al-Bukhārī, that Ibn ʿAbbās said this āyah is talking about some Muslims who were with the disbelievers, adding to their numbers — meaning that they did not really go out to fight, they simply went because they had to — and while they were in that army, an arrow would come and kill one of them, a blow from a sword would kill another, a blow from a spear a third; that is how they died, and it is of these that Allah revealed this āyah. Their Islam, then, did not benefit them, because they had not made hijrah, and had gone out with the army of Quraysh. So one is not to play around with Islam, not to fool around with it — this is a serious religion, and one needs to be serious about it. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says in the Qur'an:

O Yaḥyā, hold the Book with strength — hold it strong. And Allah, Mighty and Majestic, tells the Children of Israel:

Hold fast to what We have given you. This religion, then, does not accept a half-hearted effort — being a Muslim when it is convenient, and otherwise when it is not. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has promised Jannah, but a price has to be paid for it. This deserves careful reflection, given how serious its implications are: no one wishes to die and then be told by the angels that their reward is the Fire. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, is asked to forgive the Muslims, to grant them Jannah, and to spare them the punishment of the Fire.