Al Ḥajj

اُذِنَ لِلَّذِينَ يُقَاتَلُونَ بِاَنَّهُمْ ظُلِمُوا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَي نَصْرِهِمْ لَقَدِيرٌ

39. “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight) for they have been oppressed, and verily Allah is well able to assist them.”

Holy war is not permissible without the leave of Allah and the Messenger of Allah (S); and, thus, the oppressed are allowed to fight against their enemies, but with the leave of Allah and His Messenger (S). When the Muslims were in Mecca, the polytheists always hurt them. So, some of the Muslims frequently came to the Prophet (S) while they had been beaten, and their heads were broken. They complained of the circumstances (and asked for the permission of Holy Struggle), but the Prophet (S) told them to be patient, because he had not received the command of Holy Struggle yet.

Thereafter, the migration began and the Muslims came from Mecca to Medina when Allah sent down this verse containing the leave of Holy Struggle, which was the first verse revealed about the Holy War for the Muslim. In the pervious verse it was mentioned that Allah promised to defend the believers. In this verse, the Qur’an says:

Then, the holy Qur’an has completed this permission by the promise of victory from the side of Allah, the Almighty, where it says:

We must utilize what we have in our possession in this world where the means are used, as far as we can, and when our ability ends we may wait for the help of Allah. This was the same thing that the Prophet (S) used to apply in all his struggles and finally he was victorious. There is a discussion among the commentators whether this verse was the first commandment for the beginning of the Holy Struggle. The majority of the commentators consider it as the first holy verse of the Holy Struggle, while some others believe that verse No. 190 from Surah Al-Baqarah, No. 2 was the first verse, which says:

and some other Islamic commentators believe that verse 111 from Surah Al-Taubah, No. 9 was the first verse concerning the Holy Struggle, which says:

But the tone of the above verse rather appropriates for this matter, because the Qur’anic word /’uŏina/ has explicitly been mentioned in the verse under discussion, while those two verses are lacked of it. In other words the expression of this verse is single in kind. However, according to many Islamic narrations this verse has been rendered into the Holy Prophet (S) and Amir-al-Mu’mineen (as); and in some into the Imams (as); and, finally, in some into Hadrat Gha’m (as).

And, we have frequently said that the narrations denote to the commentary statement for the full denotation expansion and this very variation in narrations is a witness to this claim and does not contrast to the generality of the verse.²