The Daily Revelation

The story begins with a letter and a woman on a road.

Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah was no hypocrite. He had fought at Badr — the battle that separated the committed from the curious, the first test of Muslim steel. He was an emigrant. He believed. And yet, in the weeks before the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, prepared the Muslim forces for the secret march on Mecca, Hatib wrote a letter to the Quraysh leadership warning them of what was coming. He gave the letter to a woman travelling to Mecca and told her to deliver it in secret.

The Prophet, informed by revelation, sent Ali ibn Abi Talib and al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam to intercept her. They found the woman on the road, searched her belongings, and initially found nothing. When they told her they would not leave without the letter, she produced it from her braided hair. The betrayal was undeniable.

Umar ibn al-Khattab asked permission to strike Hatib's neck. The Prophet refused. He asked Hatib directly: why? And Hatib's answer is one of the most psychologically revealing confessions in the entire prophetic biography. He did not deny it. He did not claim innocence. He said: "I have not done this out of disbelief or apostasy. But I am a man who has no clan among the Quraysh, and I have family and children among them with no one to protect them. I hoped that by doing them this favour, they would protect my family."

This is not the logic of treachery. It is the logic of a man torn between two loyalties — between faith and family, between the community that sheltered his soul and the city that held his blood. And the Quran's response, rather than reducing this to simple crime and punishment, uses it as the foundation for a thirteen-verse treatise on what loyalty actually means when worlds collide.

The opening verse arrives with the full weight of divine address: "O you who believe! Do not take My enemies and your enemies for supporters, offering them affection, when they have disbelieved in what has come to you of the Truth. They have expelled the Messenger, and you, because you believed in God, your Lord" ^60:1. The prohibition is absolute. But notice the framing. God does not say "do not take them as allies because they are evil." He says: because they expelled you. The prohibition is rooted in documented fact, not abstract prejudice. These are people who have committed specific acts — rejection of truth, expulsion of the Prophet, persecution of believers.

And then the diagnosis: "If you have mobilized to strive for My cause, seeking My approval, how can you secretly love them? I know what you conceal and what you reveal. Whoever among you does that has strayed from the right way" ^60:1. The question is rhetorical, but the psychology is surgical. How can you claim to fight for God while secretly hedging your bets with God's enemies? The verse does not accuse Hatib of disbelief. It accuses him of incoherence — of trying to maintain two loyalties that are structurally incompatible.

Verse two strips away any illusion that the enemy might reciprocate: "Whenever they encounter you, they treat you as enemies, and they stretch their hands and tongues against you with malice. They wish that you would disbelieve" ^60:2. This is intelligence analysis, not theology. The Quran is providing its audience with a strategic briefing: your enemy's endgame is not coexistence. It is your capitulation. Hatib imagined reciprocity — I do them a favour, they protect my family. The Quran says: there is no reciprocity. Their goal is not coexistence. Their goal is your apostasy.

And verse three severs the last thread of Hatib's justification: "Neither your relatives nor your children will benefit you on the Day of Resurrection. He will separate between you. God is Observant of what you do" ^60:3. The very family Hatib was trying to protect by betraying the Prophet's secret will not help him when it matters most. On the Day of Judgment, lineage is dissolved. Clan is meaningless. The relationships that Hatib was willing to compromise his faith to preserve will themselves be dissolved by the One who created them. The calculation was not merely wrong. It was built on a currency that has no value in the only economy that lasts.

After establishing the prohibition, God does not leave the believers without a model. Verse 60:4 presents Abraham — not as an abstract patriarch but as a man who faced the exact same dilemma the Muslims of Medina were facing, and who resolved it with a clarity that became the template for all subsequent tests of loyalty.

"You have had an excellent example in Abraham and those with him; when they said to their people, 'We are quit of you, and what you worship apart from God. We denounce you. Enmity and hatred has surfaced between us and you, forever, until you believe in God alone'" ^60:4. The Arabic uswatun hasanah — an excellent example, a beautiful pattern — is the same phrase used in Surah Al-Ahzab (33:21) to describe the Prophet Muhammad himself. Its deployment here elevates Abraham's act of disavowal to paradigmatic status. This is not merely something Abraham did. It is something every believer must be prepared to do: declare, openly and without ambiguity, that the bonds of faith supersede the bonds of tribe, nation, family, and civilisation when those bonds demand compromise with idolatry.

But the verse immediately introduces a critical qualification — and it is this qualification that transforms Al-Mumtahina from a simple loyalty test into a sophisticated theological argument: "Except for the words of Abraham to his father, 'I will ask forgiveness for you, though I have no power from God to do anything for you'" ^60:4.

Abraham's disavowal was complete — except for one thing. He had promised his father, Azar, that he would pray for his forgiveness. And the Quran says: do not follow him in that. The promise was made from love, from a son's anguish at his father's stubbornness, from the hope that prayer might succeed where argument had failed. But it was a promise Abraham had no authority to make. Forgiveness belongs to God. And God, as we learn elsewhere in the Quran (9:113-114), eventually instructed Abraham to abandon even that prayer once it became clear that his father had died an idolater.

The theological precision here is extraordinary. The Quran does not say Abraham was wrong to love his father. It does not say he was wrong to feel anguish. It says he was wrong to promise something that was not his to give. You can disavow idolatry without disavowing love. You can break with a person's beliefs without breaking your heart's bond to the person. But you cannot promise what only God controls. The line between compassion and presumption is the line Abraham crossed — and the Quran corrects it so that no subsequent believer will cross it again.

The verse then records Abraham's prayer — the part of his example that should be followed: "Our Lord, in You we trust, and to You we repent, and to You is the ultimate resort" ^60:4. Trust. Repentance. Return. Three words that contain the entire psychology of faith under persecution. When you have broken with your family, your people, your civilisation — when you have declared enmity against everything you grew up with — what remains? Only God. And Abraham, standing in that void, said: that is enough.

Verse five continues the prayer with one of the Quran's most vulnerable supplications: "Our Lord, do not make us a target for those who disbelieve, and forgive us, our Lord. You are indeed the Mighty and Wise" ^60:5. The request is not for victory. It is not for the destruction of the enemy. It is for protection — do not let us become a fitnah, a test or a target, for the disbelievers. The classical commentators offered two readings: do not let them overpower us, lest they think their idolatry is vindicated by their triumph. Or: do not let our weakness become an argument against the truth we represent. Either way, the concern is not personal safety but theological witness. Abraham prays not that he will survive, but that his suffering will not discredit the message.

And verse six seals the model: "There is an excellent example in them for you — for anyone who seeks God and the Last Day. But whoever turns away — God is the Self-Sufficient, the Most Praised" ^60:6. The example is offered. It is not forced. God does not need your allegiance. He is Self-Sufficient. He is Praised regardless of whether you praise Him. The door is open, and if you walk through it, you will find Abraham waiting on the other side. If you do not, God's sufficiency is undiminished. The loss is entirely yours.

After six verses of prohibition, separation, and the hard calculus of loyalty, the Quran pivots. Verse seven is one of the most unexpected turns in the entire revelation — a single line that reframes everything that came before it.

"Perhaps God will plant affection between you and those of them you consider enemies. God is Capable. God is Forgiving and Merciful" ^60:7. Read that again. The same God who just commanded total dissociation from the enemies of faith is now saying: I might change this. I might turn your enemies into your beloved. Do not assume the map of your relationships is permanent.

The classical scholars were electrified by this verse. Ibn Kathir records that it was fulfilled within two years, when Mecca fell in the eighth year of the Hijra and the Quraysh — the very people the believers had been forbidden from befriending — embraced Islam en masse. Abu Sufyan, the commander of the pagan armies at Uhud and the Trench, became a Muslim. Hind bint Utbah, who had chewed the liver of the Prophet's uncle Hamza at Uhud, took the oath of allegiance. The impossible happened. And verse seven had predicted it.

But the verse's significance extends far beyond the historical. It establishes a theological principle that has no parallel in most conflict frameworks: the prohibition on alliance with enemies is situational, not essential. The Quran does not say "your enemies are permanently defined." It says: right now, while they fight you and expel you, do not ally with them. But God can change hearts. God can plant love where only hatred grows. The enemy of today is not necessarily the enemy of tomorrow.

This is why verses eight and nine function as a precise legal calibration immediately following the promise. Verse eight: "As for those who have not fought against you for your religion, nor expelled you from your homes, God does not prohibit you from dealing with them kindly and equitably. God loves the equitable" ^60:8. The permission here is far more than tolerance. The Arabic word birr used for "kindly" is the same word the Quran uses for the highest form of righteousness toward one's parents. God is telling believers to treat peaceful non-Muslims with the same moral generosity they would show their own mothers and fathers. And the closing phrase — "God loves the equitable" — transforms the command into a spiritual incentive. The believer who treats a non-Muslim neighbour with justice is not merely obeying a rule. They are earning the love of God.

Verse nine draws the red line: "But God prohibits you from befriending those who fought against you over your religion, and expelled you from your homes, and aided in your expulsion. Whoever takes them for friends — these are the wrongdoers" ^60:9. The prohibition is conditional. It applies to those who fought, expelled, and aided in expulsion. Three specific acts. Not belief. Not identity. Not theology. Acts.

Together, verses 7, 8, and 9 constitute one of the most sophisticated frameworks for inter-communal ethics in any scripture. They simultaneously maintain the moral clarity of refusing to legitimise persecution, extend the hand of kindness to anyone who is not actively hostile, and hold open the door for God to transform the entire relational landscape at any moment. This is not naive pacifism. It is not rigid tribalism. It is principled realism with a window left open for grace.

The tragedy of modern discourse is that verse 60:8 — one of the most ethically demanding verses in the Quran — is almost never quoted in debates about Islam's relationship with the non-Muslim world, while verses about warfare are extracted from their context with devastating frequency. The Quran placed kindness before prohibition. It defined the default relationship with non-Muslims as one of goodness and equity. It reserved its restriction for a specific, narrowly defined category of active persecutors. And it promised, in 60:7, that even the restricted category is not permanent. The text is clear. The question is whether those who claim to follow it have read it.

The second half of Al-Mumtahina shifts from theology to legislation — and what it legislates is, by any standard of the seventh century or the twenty-first, extraordinary.

"O you who believe! When believing women come to you emigrating, test them. God is Aware of their faith. And if you find them to be faithful, do not send them back to the unbelievers. They are not lawful for them, nor are they lawful for them. But give them what they have spent. You are not at fault if you marry them, provided you give them their compensation. And do not hold on to ties with unbelieving women, but demand what you have spent, and let them demand what they have spent. This is the rule of God; He rules among you. God is Knowing and Wise" ^60:10.

The historical context is the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, signed in the sixth year of the Hijra. Under its terms, any Meccan who fled to Medina was to be returned. When the Quraysh insisted this applied to women too, this verse intervened. Believing women who fled Mecca were not to be returned. Period. The treaty's clause was overridden by divine legislation. A woman's faith — verified through examination — took precedence over a political agreement between men.

The legal framework established here is precise. First, the women are to be tested — the Arabic imtahinuhunna gives this surah its name. The test was not an interrogation. According to the hadith literature, the Prophet would ask the woman to swear by God that she had emigrated out of genuine faith, not because of hatred for her husband or desire for a particular Muslim man. It was a test of sincerity, not theology. Second, if found faithful, she is granted asylum. She cannot be returned. Third, the financial rights of all parties are protected: the Muslim community compensates her former husband for his bridal expenditure, and she receives her own compensation if she remarries. Fourth, the principle is applied in reverse: Muslim men are instructed not to hold on to marriages with unbelieving women who have chosen to remain with the Quraysh.

Verse eleven addresses the reciprocal case: "If any of your wives desert you to the unbelievers, and you decide to penalize them, give those whose wives have gone away the equivalent of what they had spent. And fear God, in whom you are believers" ^60:11. The system is symmetrical. No party is left without compensation. No party is left without recourse. The closing command — "And fear God, in whom you are believers" — reminds the community that even in the turbulence of marital dissolution across enemy lines, the governing principle is not revenge but taqwa: consciousness of God.

And then verse twelve — the oath that makes this surah unlike any other in the Quran. "O prophet! If believing women come to you, pledging allegiance to you, on condition that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit adultery, nor kill their children, nor commit perjury as to parenthood, nor disobey you in anything righteous, accept their allegiance and ask God's forgiveness for them. God is Forgiving and Merciful" ^60:12.

This is the Bay'at al-Nisa — the Women's Pledge. It is, historically, the only oath of allegiance in the prophetic period that was defined entirely in moral terms. No military obligation. No financial levy. Six conditions, all ethical: no polytheism, no theft, no adultery, no infanticide, no slander, no disobedience in what is righteous. Consider the significance. In a society where a woman's primary political identity was through her husband or her tribe, the Quran created a mechanism by which women could pledge allegiance directly to the Prophet — and through him, to God — as individuals.

The sixth condition deserves particular attention: "nor disobey you in anything righteous." The qualifier fi ma'ruf — in what is righteous, in what is known to be good — places an explicit limitation on authority itself. The pledge does not demand blind obedience. It demands obedience in righteousness. The Prophet himself could only command what is good, and obedience is conditional on that goodness. This is not submission to a man. It is submission to principle, channelled through a leader whose authority is itself bounded by divine law.

The verse commands the Prophet: "accept their allegiance." He is not given the option of refusing. And then: "ask God's forgiveness for them." The women who come forward are not treated as supplicants begging for admission. They are treated as full members of the community, worthy of the Prophet's intercession and God's forgiveness. The pledge is not a gatekeeping exercise. It is a covenant — a mutual commitment between the women and the community they are joining, sealed by divine mercy.

The final verse of Al-Mumtahina is often overlooked in the shadow of the asylum legislation and the Women's Pledge that precede it. But verse thirteen is the structural keystone without which the surah's architecture collapses. It returns the reader to the exact prohibition with which the chapter opened — creating a literary ring that locks the entire argument into place.

"O you who believe! Do not befriend people with whom God has become angry, and have despaired of the Hereafter, as the faithless have despaired of the occupants of the graves" ^60:13.

Compare this with the opening: "O you who believe! Do not take My enemies and your enemies for supporters" ^60:1. Both verses begin with the same address — "O you who believe!" Both issue the same prohibition: do not form bonds of loyalty with those who stand against God. The surah opens by forbidding alliance with active persecutors. It closes by forbidding friendship with those who have despaired of the afterlife entirely. The first verse addresses a political reality. The last verse addresses a spiritual condition.

The image that closes the surah is harrowing: people who have despaired of the Hereafter "as the faithless have despaired of the occupants of the graves." The comparison is double-layered. The faithless — those who deny resurrection — have no hope for the dead. They look at graves and see finality. The people described in verse thirteen have adopted the same nihilism toward their own future. They have given up on eternity. They have abandoned the idea that anything beyond this life matters. To befriend such people, the Quran warns, is to absorb their despair — to allow their spiritual deadness to infect your own expectation of meeting God.

The psychological insight is precise. The Quran is not concerned here with theological debate. It is concerned with contagion. Despair is transmissible. When you surround yourself with people who have abandoned all hope of accountability, who live as though the grave is the end of everything, their worldview seeps into yours. The prohibition is not punishment for the despairing. It is protection for the believing.

Structurally, verse thirteen completes the surah's movement from the external to the internal. Verses 1 through 3 address political loyalty. Verses 4 through 6 provide a historical model. Verse 7 offers the promise of transformation. Verses 8 and 9 establish the ethical framework. Verses 10 through 12 legislate the rights of women. And verse 13 turns inward — to the condition of the heart, to the company you keep, to the spiritual atmosphere you breathe. The surah that began with a security breach — a letter sent to the enemy — ends with the ultimate security breach: the infiltration of hopelessness into the soul of a believer.

Al-Mumtahina begins and ends with the same imperative: guard your loyalties. But by the time you reach verse thirteen, you understand that loyalty is not merely a political question. It is a spiritual one. The people you love, the company you keep, the worldview you absorb — these are not neutral choices. They shape what you expect from eternity. And a believer who has stopped expecting eternity has already lost the only thing that makes faith coherent.