(75) “What is the matter with you that you do not fight in the cause of Allah and for the oppressed among men, women, and children, who say, ‘Our Lord, deliver us from this city whose people are oppressors, and appoint for us from Yourself a protector, and appoint for us from Yourself a helper’?”

This is an exhortation from Allah to His believing servants, stirring them to fight in His cause. Fighting had become an individual duty incumbent upon them, and they deserved severe blame for abandoning it. He therefore said, “What is the matter with you that you do not fight in the cause of Allah,” when the oppressed men, women, and children can devise no means of escape and can find no way out? Yet despite this, they have suffered the gravest oppression at the hands of their enemies. They therefore call upon Allah to deliver them from this city whose people wrong themselves through disbelief and polytheism, and wrong the believers by harming them, barring them from the path of Allah, and preventing them from calling others to their faith and from emigrating.

They also call upon Allah to appoint for them a protector and a helper who will rescue them from this city whose people are oppressors. Thus, your jihad in this situation falls under fighting to defend your dependents, children, and womenfolk, rather than the form of jihad that consists in taking the offensive against the disbelievers. Although the latter carries immense merit and anyone who remains behind from it deserves the severest blame, the jihad that rescues the oppressed among you brings a greater reward and greater benefit, for it falls under repelling the enemy.