- “The sacred month is for the sacred month, and violations of sanctity call for equal retribution. Whoever transgresses against you, retaliate against him in the same manner as he transgressed against you. Fear Allah, and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.”
Allah, Most High, says: “The sacred month is for the sacred month.” This may refer to the polytheists’ barring the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and his Companions from entering Mecca in the year of al-Hudaybiyyah. The two sides agreed that they would enter it the following year. Both the barring and the subsequent fulfillment took place in a sacred month, namely Dhū al-Qadah; thus, one offset the other. This reassured the Companions by enabling them to complete and perfect their rites.
It may also mean: If you fight them in the sacred month (1), they have already fought you in it, and they were the aggressors; therefore, you incur no blame for doing so. On this interpretation, His words, “and violations of sanctity call for equal retribution,” join the general to the specific. That is, everything deemed sacred—whether a sacred month, the Sacred Precinct, the state of consecration, or anything broader than these, including everything the Sacred Law commands people to respect—is subject to retribution when someone dares to violate it. Whoever fights in a sacred month is fought; whoever violates the Sacred Precinct is subjected to the prescribed penalty, and its sanctity affords him no protection; whoever kills someone equal to him in legal status is put to death for it; whoever wounds another or severs one of his limbs is subjected to equivalent retaliation; and whoever takes another person’s inviolable property must surrender its equivalent.
Scholars differ, however, as to whether the person entitled to a right may take from the other person’s property an amount equal to his due. The sounder view is that if the basis of the claim is manifest—such as a guest whose host fails to provide him hospitality, or a wife or relative when the person responsible for their maintenance refuses [to provide for them]—then the claimant may take what is due from that person’s property.
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If, however, the basis of the claim is concealed—as when someone denies a debt he owes another person, betrays him regarding something entrusted to his care, steals from him, or the like—the claimant may not take from his property in compensation. This reconciles the various proofs. Therefore, to emphasize and reinforce what has preceded, Allah, Most High, says: “Whoever transgresses against you, retaliate against him in the same manner as he transgressed against you.” This explains the nature of reciprocal redress: it must correspond precisely to the aggressor’s act.
Because people, for the most part, do not remain within proper limits when permitted to punish—due to their desire for vengeance—Allah, Most High, commands them to adhere to fear of Him, which means remaining within His limits and not transgressing them. He also declares that He is “with those who fear Him,” meaning that He grants them assistance, victory, support, and success.
Whoever has Allah with him will attain everlasting happiness. But whoever does not adhere to the fear of Allah will be abandoned and forsaken by his Protector and left to himself; his destruction will then be nearer to him than his jugular vein.