In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent
God will certainly defend those who believe. For certain, God does not love anyone who betrays his trust and is bereft of gratitude.
Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is being wrongfully waged. Most certainly, God has the power to grant them victory. These are the ones who have been driven from their homelands against all right for no other reason than their saying, ‘Our Lord is God!’ Were it not that God repels some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques – in all of which God’s name is abundantly extolled – would surely have been destroyed. God will most certainly succour him who succours God’s cause. God is certainly most powerful, almighty. (The Pilgrimage, Al-Haj: 22: 38-40)
In our reflections on this text we raised last week the question that why should permission to fight be needed when God makes it clear that He is the One who defends believers. A person or a group that enjoys God’s protection will certainly end up victorious. Since victory is so much assured, what is the need for believers to go to war, sacrifice themselves and endure much hardship?
God has willed that His defense of the believers be through them, so that as they go through battle, they achieve maturity. Nothing brings up latent human resources better than danger. It is only when people realize that they are being attacked that they try to muster all their potentials. Thus, every cell comes forward to play its role, joining ranks with all other cells, each doing its utmost to attain the highest level it can achieve in this life. A community entrusted with God’s cause needs to have all its cells ready, its resources brought forth, and all its forces mobilized so that it attains its full maturity and is able to discharge its great trust.
A speedy victory gratuitously given to people who make little effort and sit relaxed will not tap such latent resources and abilities. There is simply no incentive for them to bring such resources into play. Furthermore, victory achieved easily is lost easily. To start with, it comes cheap, requiring no real sacrifice. Moreover, those who achieve it do not have the necessary training to keep it. Since they did not have to mobilize their resources to win it, they are not mobilized to defend it.
Moreover, when the Muslim community has to go to war and utilize its resources in attack and defense, feeling its weakness at times and strength at other times, retreating one day and moving forward the next day, it will gain valuable experience. It will experience contrasting feelings such as hope and pain, joy and sorrow, worry and reassurance, weakness and strength. It will also experience unity in faith, readiness to sacrifice all, as well as the bringing up of all elements to work together in harmony before, during and after the battle. It will learn what points of strength it has so as to enhance them, and its areas of weakness and how to redress them. All these are needed for a community entrusted with the divine faith and its advocacy.
For all this and other reasons known to God, He does not make victory a free gift granted to believers in a package that falls to them from the sky. Indeed, God accomplishes His defense of the believers through their own efforts.
We need to add here that Islam does not consider fighting an end or an objective. It permits fighting for a goal that is greater than achieving a state of modus vivendi. As stated in many other Qur’anic verses, peace is the goal Islam wants to achieve. But peace must be free of aggression, injustice and oppression. When oppression or injustice is perpetrated against any aspect of human dignity, such as the freedom of belief and worship, justice, fair distribution of benefits, responsibilities, rights and duties, and conscientious observance of divine rules by individuals and community alike, then Islam adopts a different attitude. Whether such aggression and injustice are perpetrated by an individual, a group or a state, and the victim of such aggression is similarly an individual, a group or a state, Islam will not countenance any peace that sanctions such aggression. Peace, according to Islam, does not mean the absence of war; it means complete justice, according to the code God has chosen for human life.
Yet victory may be slow coming to those who are driven out of their homes against all right and for no reason other than their declaration of their belief in God as the only Lord in the universe. If it is slow coming, then there must be a reason for that.
Victory may be slow coming because the Muslim community may have not attained full maturity. It may have not mobilized all its resources and tapped its potentials. Should victory be given to it then, it would not be able to protect it for long, and it would soon lose it. Victory, on the other hand, may be delayed until the community of believers has given its all, sacrificing every cherished thing, demonstrating that it holds nothing too dear to put forward.
It may happen that victory is not granted until the community of believers has tried all its efforts and realized that such efforts, on their own, cannot guarantee victory unless they are supported by God. Victory is granted by God only when believers have done their best, placing all their trust in God alone. Likewise, victory may be delayed so that the community of believers strengthens its bonds with God. It will suffer and render sacrifices, realizing that it cannot turn for support to anyone other than God. It is such bond with God that guarantees that it will continue to follow the right path after victory. This is a highly important objective. The Muslim community must never swerve from the path of truth and justice through which its victory is achieved.
Victory may also be slow coming if the community of believers does not dedicate all its struggle and sacrifices to God alone. It may be fighting for something it wants to gain, or for national interests, or to show its bravery. But God wants its struggle to be purely for Him, untinged by any other feelings or objectives. The Prophet was once asked about a person fighting to support his community, one fighting out of bravery, and one fighting to be seen in battle: "Which of them is for God’s sake?" He replied: "Only he who fights so that God’s word becomes supreme fights for God’s cause." (Related by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
We will point out other reasons that may delay victory next week, God willing.
