| Surah Aal Imran, 144-145
"And Muhammad is but a messenger, there have been messengers before him. So, if he dies or is killed, would you turn back on your heels? And whoever turns back on. his heels can never harm Allah at all. And Allah shall soon reward the grateful. [144] And it is not the choice of a person to die without the will of Allah, death being a time-bound destiny. And whoever seeks the return in this world, We shall give him out of it, and whoever seeks the return in the Hereafter, We shall give him out of it. And We shall soon reward the grateful."[145] (3:144-145)
Commentary
Related to the battle of Uhud, these verses recount events which have a particular significance of their own for several reasons. As such, the Holy Qur'an devotes four to five sections of the Surah 'Al-'Imran to the sequence of victory and defeat at the battle of Uhud and to the natural points of guidance underlying these.
In the first verse out of those appearing above, the warning which is rather frightening, given to the noble Companions on an act of indiscretion by some of them, actually settles a matter of principle. A little deliberation shows that there was a secret behind the temporary debacle suffered by the Muslims, the wounding of the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him, the spreading of the news that he had passed away and that some Companions lost heart because of it: that secret, was nothing but that Muslims should come to understand this basic principle and become practically firm when the challenge comes. This principle of Islam was bipolar. First of all it must be fully realized that Islam gives great importance to the unique respect and love given to the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him, so much so that it has been made an integral part of Faith and the slightest deviation or weakness in this delicate matter has been equated with straight kufr, disbelief or infidelity. Then, at the same time, it was equally important to ensure that Muslims should not fall a prey to the same disease that afflicted the Nazarenes and Christians. They exaggerated the respect and love due to Sayyidna 'Isa (A.S) by taking it to the extremes, invested him with partnership in the divinity of Allah Almighty and started to worship him.
When, at the time of the temporary setback suffered by Muslims at the battle of Uhud, someone started the rumour that the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him had passed away, the agony that seized the noble Companions - a very direct, very natural reaction indeed - is something everybody cannot experience or reckon even in its most modest measure. Only he who has the knowledge of and feeling for the supreme love and devotion the noble Companions had for the prophet could come close to guessing the kind of agony and distress faced by them at that time. It really takes the full knowledge and realization of the sacrifices made by these blessed souls who, out of their unflinching devotion and love for their most dear mentor and the messenger of Allah, staked everything they had - money, property, children and their very lives for his sake, considering their sacrifices as the most desirable achievement of this mortal life, and proving it by their deeds.
Just imagine what would have happened to these devotees of the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him when this shocking news came to them, specially so when the battle was in full cry, defeat was looming large after the initial victory, Muslims were losing ground and in this heat of the moment, they come to know the passing away of someone who was the very pivot of their struggle and the symbol of all their hopes.
The natural outcome of this situation was that a large group of the noble Companions started retreating from the battlefield in a state of confusion. This retreat from the battlefield was no doubt a result of fleeting confusion and in the least, without any indication of turning away from Islam. The truth of the matter was that Allah Almighty intended to mould into a group the Companions of His Messenger who were pious and angelic and who could become role models for the whole world. It was for this reason that an ordinary mistake by them was considered to be very serious. Therefore they were addressed on their retreating away from the battlefield in a fashion similar to what it would have been, had they deserted the fold of Islam. With this expressing of wrath, warning was given that all obligations of Faith, Worship and Jihad are for Allah who is Living and Eternal. Even if the news that the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him had been martyred on the battlefield were to be true, that would have been something which was to come to pass when appointed. Losing heart and abandoning the dictates of Faith were responses that did not behove those in their position. Therefore, it was said:
"And Muhammad is but a messenger, there have been messengers before him. So, if he dies or is killed, would you turn back on your heels? And whoever turns back on his heels can never harm Allah at all. And Allah shall soon reward the grateful."
Here, Muslims are being warned that the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him is going to leave this mortal world on one or the other day but they have to hold on to the Faith firmly after him as well, in the same measure as they did during his blessed times. From here, we also come to know that the injury caused to the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him during that temporary setback and the news of his passing away on the battlefield was concealed divine arrangement through which all that could happen to the noble Companions after him was revealed during his very life-time so that any slip in their conduct of affairs could be corrected in the very words of the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him, as a result of which it could be ensured that these ardent lovers and devotees of the Messenger of Allah do not lose their coolness under exacting conditions, specially when this event of the passing away of the Messenger of Allah does actually take place. This is exactly what happened later on when the noble Companions, even the greatest among them, were overwhelmed with the severest emotional shock at the time of his passing away. At this juncture, it was Sayyidna Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, who used the authority of Qur'anic verses such as these to explain the situation to them as a result of which all of them were able to accept the truth and control their emotions.
The need to learn that crucial lesson has been taken up in the second verse as well. In order to teach steadfastness under calamities and hardships, it has been said that the death of every human being lies written with Allah Almighty. Fixed is its date, the day and the time. Death cannot come to take one away before that, nor could one continue to live after that. If so, getting scared about a certain death means nothing.
Now, towards the end, there comes an admonition about one of the apparent causes of this incident. As stated earlier, the Companions who were posted by the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him as guards on the hill in the rear saw that fellow Muslims were busy collecting spoils following the initial victory. Some of them started thinking about the fact of victory following which there was no need for them to stay at their post. If so, they concluded, why should they too not go in there and take part in the collection of spoils? So, they moved away from where they were ordered to be. Thereupon, it was said:
And whoever seeks the return in this world, We shall give him out of it, and whoever seeks the return in the Hereafter, We shall give him out of it. And We shall soon reward the grateful. (145)
Here, it has been hinted that they made a mistake when they abandoned the duty assigned to them by the Holy Prophet Sallallahu 'Alayhi Wasallam: Peace be upon him in order to collect spoils. At this point, let us keep in mind that, in its real sense the collection of spoils is not the same as the unabashed pursuit of the material which has been condemned in the Shari'ah of Islam. On the contrary, collecting spoils, depositing it in safe custody and spending it where it must be spent is all a part of Jihad, and for that matter, an act of worship. So, the Companions who took part in this mission never did it for sheer material gain, for they would have been entitled to receive their due share in the spoils of war even if they had not actively participated in the collection of spoils as guaranteed under the Islamic Law.
Therefore, it cannot be said that these blessed Companions abandoned their post of duty under the temptation of worldly gains. But, as explained earlier under comments on the first verse (144), even minor mistakes made by major people draw more attention. Even an ordinary deviation from their duty is taken to be serious and they are admonished for that. This applies here as well. Granted that their collecting of spoils could be related with the desire to make worldly gains, at the most in some minor way; and equally granted is the possibility that this small connection had not influenced their hearts; yet, it was to take the morals of the noble Companions to the highest possible level that this act of theirs was identified as 'the seeking of return in this world' so that even the tiniest speck of worldly temptation fails to find its way into their hearts. (Ma'ariful Qur'an, Volume 2)
» Posted by Seifeddine-M on 10th January 2012
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