The Spoils of War (Al-Anfal)

Commentary

(a) The granting of God’s bounty depends upon eligibility for entitlement to such bounty. At the national or community level, bounty is commensurate with the worth of the individuals making up the larger entity. Collective bounty or blessings are given according to the status of a community assessed at the level of its individuals. This means that if a group wants to have God’s collective grace, it should bend its entire energies to the improvement of the inner selves of its individuals. Similarly, if a community finds that collective bounties are taken away from it, instead of running after the bounties themselves, it should pursue its individuals, because of the fact that it is due to deterioration in individuals that it is deprived of bounties, and only on the reformation of individuals can it have God’s grace restored. When a community adopts the way of tyranny instead of justice and the way of arrogance instead of modesty, then a pronouncement of Truth is made before it so that it is given a warning. This declaration, in view of its perfect clarity, is a sign from God. Accepting it amounts to accepting God, just as its rejection amounts to rejection of God. When the call of God reveals itself to the extent of a sign (ayah), and appears before people, and still they reject it, they necessarily become liable for punishment. Though the beginning of this punishment starts in this world, the punishment of the world is far more lenient than the punishment that man is going to face after death. The beatings of the angels, humiliation before all the creatures, burning in the fire of hell—all these stages are so terrible that one cannot even imagine them in the present conditions. When a man adopts the ways of tyranny and arrogance, he receives at first a warning. When he does not learn a lesson from it, he is finally struck down by the severe punishment of God.