as to its meaning, for its apparent wording seems to grant them permission for every kind of deed and to leave them free to choose whatever they please—something impossible.
Some scholars, among them Ibn al-Jawzi (1), therefore said: the intent of the command “iʿmalū” (“do”) is not the future but the past; its sense is, “Whatever deed you had previously done, I have already forgiven it.” He offered two indications for this reading:
- Had the verb referred to the future, the reply would have been, “I will forgive you.”
- It would have constituted an absolute licence with respect to sins, and that is untenable.
The substance of this answer is: I have, by virtue of this battle, forgiven your past sins.
Yet it is weak on two grounds:
First, the very word iʿmalū points to the future, not the past. The phrase “I have forgiven you” does not oblige iʿmalū to share its tense, for “I have forgiven” is an emphatic assurance of forgiveness that will certainly occur, just like the Qur’anic statements, “The command of Allah has come” (16:1) and “and your Lord will come” (89:22), and the like.
Second, the context of the hadith itself disproves that view, for its occasion was the incident of Ḥātib and his act of espionage (2) against the Prophet ﷺ—an offence committed after the Battle of Badr, not before it. Since that incident prompted the report, it is definitely included in its scope.
Therefore, what we think—Allah knows best—is that this address is directed to people whom Allah knew would never forsake their religion but would die as Muslims, and that they have