Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi

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Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah Al-Munafiqun — Ayah 2

63:2
ٱتَّخَذُوٓاْ أَيۡمَٰنَهُمۡ جُنَّةٗ فَصَدُّواْ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّهُمۡ سَآءَ مَا كَانُواْ يَعۡمَلُونَ ٢
They shelter behind their oath,1 and thus hinder their own selves and others from the Path of Allah.2 Evil indeed is what they do.
Footnotes
  • [1] That is, they use the oaths that they swear to convince others of their Islam and faith as a shield to save themselves from the wrath of the Muslims so that they do not treat them as they treat their open enemies.
  • [2] These oaths may imply the oaths which they usually swear to convince others of their faith as well as those which they swore when they were caught committing some hypocritical act, and also those oaths which Abdullah bin Ubayy had sworn to contradict the report given by Zaid bin Arqam. Besides these, there is another probability that Allah might have regarded this statement of theirs as an oath: We bear witness that you are Allah’s Messenger. This last probability has given rise to a dispute among the jurists, namely: If a person states something with the words: I bear witness, will it be regarded as an oath or not? Imam Abu Hanifah and his companions (except Imam Zufar), Imam Sufyan Thauri and Imam Auzai regard it as an oath (Yamin in the Shariah terminology). Imam Zufar says that it is not an oath. Two sayings from Imam Malik have been reported in this connection: First, that it is an oath absolutely, and second, that if while saying: I bear witness, his intention was to say: My God, I bear witness, or I bear witness before God, it would be a statement on oath, otherwise not. Imam Shafei says: Even if the person says the words: I bear witness before God. it would not be a statement made on oath, unless he uttered these words with the intention of swearing an oath, (AI-Jassas, Ahkam al- Quran; Ibn alArabi, Ahkam al-Quran).