Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi

Footnotes

• [1] The recipients of this command are all those Muslims who may not be a party to either of the groups and for whom it may be possible to try to make peace between them. In other words, Allah does not approve that the other Muslims should just sit and watch the clash when two groups of their own community have fallen to mutual fighting. But whenever such a sad situation arises all the believers should become concerned and should do whatever they can to bring about peace and reconciliation between the parties. They should urge the parties to desist from fighting; they should exhort them to fear God. Their influential people should go and talk to the responsible men of the two sides, should find out the causes of the dispute and do whatever they can to effect reconciliation between them.
• [2] That is, The Muslims also should not allow the aggressor to continue his aggression and leave the victim alone, or, still worse, join hands with the aggressor. But their duty is that if all their efforts at reconciliation between the parties fail, they should find out as to who is in the right and who is the aggressor. Then they should join hands with the one who is in the right and fight the aggressor. As this fighting has been enjoined by Allah, it is obligatory and comes under jihad, it is not the fitnah (mischief) about which the Prophet (peace be upon him) has said: It is a situation in which the one standing is better than the one moving, and the one sitting is better than the one standing. For, that fitnah implies the mutual fighting of the Muslims in which the parties might be fighting out of bigotry, or for a false sense of honor and worldly possessions and neither may be having the truth on its side. As for the fight that is undertaken in support of the group who is in the right against the aggressor, it is not taking part in the fitnah but carrying out Allah’s command. All the jurists agree on its being an obligation. And there was no difference of opinion among the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) companions about its being obligatory. (AIJassas, Ahkamal-Quran). Some jurists even regard it as superior to jihad itself and their reasoning is that Ali spent the entire period of his caliphate in fighting against the rebels instead of performing jihad against the disbelievers. (Ruhal-Maani). If a person argues that it was not obligatory because Abdullah bin Umar and some other companions had not participated in the wars fought by Ali, he would be in the wrong. Ibn Umar himself says: I have never been so much grieved at heart on anything as on account of this verse as to why I did not fight the rebels as enjoined by Allah. (Hakim, al-Mustadrik).
• [3] The command to fight the aggressor does not necessarily mean that he should be fought with the weapons and killed, but it implies the use of force against him, the real object being the removal of his aggression. For this object whatever force is necessary should be used, and no more and no less force should be used than what is absolutely necessary.
• [4] The addressees of this command are the people who have the power to repel the aggression by the use of force.
• [5] This shows that the fighting is not meant to punish the rebel (the aggressing party) for his rebellion (aggression), but to force him to return to the command of Allah. Allah’s command implies that the rebel group should submit to what is right according to the Book of Allah and the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, and should give up the attitude and conduct that amounts to aggression according to this criterion of the truth. As soon as a rebel group becomes ready and willing to follow this command, use of force against it should be stopped, for this is the actual object of the fighting and its target. The one who commits an excess after this would himself become the aggressor. As for this as to what is the truth and what is the aggression in a dispute according to the Book of Allah and the sunnah of His Messenger, its determination is inevitably the job of those people of the ummah, who have the ability to carry out research by virtue of their knowledge and insight.
• [6] Instead of saying: When two factions of the believers fight mutually, it has been said: If two factions of the believers should fight. From these words, it follows that mutual fighting is not the character of the Muslims, nor should it be. It is not expected that being the believers they would fight mutually. However, if such a thing ever happens, the procedure that follows should be adopted. Moreover, the word taifah has been used for a group instead of firqah: the words taifah and firqah in Arabic are used for a small group and a large group respectively. This also shows that it is indeed a highly offensive state in the sight of Allah in which large groups of the Muslims cannot be expected to be involved.