The Holy War — Page 248
248 By h a d rat Mirza [Ghulam Ahmad] Sahib Of all these verses of the Holy Quran that Deputy [Abdullah Atham] sahib has again written from which he wishes to derive the result of faith by compulsion, it is sad that in presenting these verses he did not employ an iota of fairness. I had clearly established in my earlier writing that the teaching of compulsion is most certainly not present in the Holy Quran. First, the disbelievers started by inflicting great suffering upon hun- dreds of believers, killing some and expelling others from their homes. Then they pursued them, and when their cruelty exceeded all bounds and their crimes became worthy of punishment in the sight of God Almighty, then Allah the Exalted sent down this revelation: 1 (Pt. 17 R. 13)— َنِذُا َنْيِذَّلِل َنْوُلَتٰقُي ْمُهَّنَاِب اْوُمِلُظ١ؕ َو َّنِا َهّٰللا ىٰلَع ْمِهِرْصَن ُرْيِدَقَل۰۰ In other words, now Allah the Exalted also grants permission to retal- iate for those people upon whom excesses were committed—that is to say, the Muslims—and for whose killing plans had been set in motion. Thereafter, on account of all the bloodshed which the people of Arabia had unjustly perpetrated and because of the brutal slaughter of Muslims that they had committed already, they had collectively become deserving of the law of retaliation. They had become worthy of being killed in the very same manner in which they had unjustly 1. Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made because they have been wronged—and Allah indeed has the power to help them—( S u rah al- H ajj, 22:40). [Publisher]