Tazkirul Quran, Qur’an 2:194–195
The Heifer (Al-Baqarah)
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
English text; the translator is not named in the archive’s data.
Translation
(194) A sacred month for a sacred month: violation of sanctity calls for fair retribution. Thus you may exact retribution from whoever transgresses against you, in proportion to his transgression. Fear God and know that God is with those who are mindful of Him. (195) Spend for God’s cause: do not cast yourselves into destruction by your own hands. Do good, God loves the doers of good.
Commentary
(a) Fighting during the sacred months (Muharram, Rajab, Dhu’l-Qada, Dhu’l-Hijjah) or fighting within the precincts of Makkah is forbidden. But if opponents commit aggression in these months, believers may fight back in self-defence. But while fighting, believers must abstain from all atrocities, they should not transgress any bounds set by God—if they truly fear God—even at times of great provocation as in a state of war.
(b) More than anything else, the struggle for the cause of God demands the expenditure of money. It is the sacrifice of wealth, which man finds most difficult. That is why the Quran enjoins us to regard the cause of God as our own cause and to spend generously for the cause of religion. If we fail to do so, we are inviting our own destruction in this world as well as in the next. If man does not surrender all that he has to God, why should God give what He has to him?
Man thinks that the best use of his wealth is to spend it on himself or his family. But the Quran calls this the way to destruction. The proper use of wealth is to spend generously for the cause of religion. This will make man deserving of God’s blessings. He will receive divine succour in this world and will be rewarded with paradise in the hereafter.