The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 241
PT. 17 AL-HAJJ CH. 22 إِنَّ اللهَ يُدْفِعُ عَنِ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ Surely, Allah defends those. 39 لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ خَوَّانٍ كَفُورِة 55000 હૈ. الثالثة who believe. Surely, Allah loves not anyone who is perfidious or ungrateful. 2469 sacrifice is the shell and the spirit underlying it is the kernel and essence yet the shell or the body of a thing, like its soul, spirit or kernel, is also of very great importance because no soul could exist without a body and no kernel without a shell. 2469. Commentary: somewhat detailed note is called for on this subject. Man is God's noblest handiwork. He is the acme of His creation, its aim and end. He is God's vicegerent on earth and the king of His whole creation (2:30). To him even angels in heaven make obeisance and for him all animate and inanimate things—the With this verse is introduced the earth, the heaven, the sun, moon, subject of jihad. The theme of stars, mountains, oceans, rivers, sacrifice has formed a befitting animals, and birds, have been created prelude to this all-important subject. and to him they have been made Having explained the importance and subservient (14:33, 34; 35:14). This is significance of sacrifice, the Quran the Islamic conception of man's high proceeds to tell Muslims that the time place in the universe. It is therefore has arrived that they should be only natural that that religion which prepared to undergo all manner of has raised man to such a high sacrifice in the defence of their faith pedestal should have attached very which the enemy is out to destroy. great importance and sanctity to his Before the permission to fight in self-life. Of all things man's life, defence was given to Muslims, they were apprised of the importance of sacrifice. The words, "Surely, Allah defends those who believe," throw a flood of light on the Islamic conception of jihad. Jihad, as these words show, is fighting in defence of truth. But whereas Islam allows no aggressive war, it regards the waging of it in self-defence as an act of the highest virtue. Because much misconception prevails regarding the Islamic teaching about jihad and because Islam has been much maligned and subjected to much wilful and deliberate mis- representation on this account a 2155 according to the Quran, is most sacred and inviolable. It is a sacrilege to take it except under very rare circumstances which the Quran has specifically mentioned. According to the Quran the killing of a person without a just cause is tantamount to the killing of the whole of mankind (17:34; 5:33); SO sacred and sanctified is man's life. No less important, according to Islam, is freedom of conscience. It is man's most precious heritage- perhaps more precious than life itself. The Quran, which has attached the greatest sanctity to man's life, could not have failed to acknowledge and