(28) “O you who believe, the polytheists are indeed impure, so let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year. If you fear poverty, Allah will enrich you out of His bounty, if He wills. Indeed, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”
Allah Most High says: “O you who believe, the polytheists”—those who associate partners with Allah and worship others alongside Him—“are indeed impure”; that is, they are vile in their beliefs and deeds. What impurity could be worse than that of one who worships gods alongside Allah that can neither benefit nor harm him and are of no avail to him whatsoever?
Their deeds range from waging war against Allah and barring people from His path to supporting falsehood, rejecting the truth, and spreading corruption on earth rather than reform. You must therefore purify the noblest and purest of all Houses from their presence.
“So let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year.” This was the ninth year after the Hijrah, when Abu Bakr al-Siddīq led the people in Hajj. The Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) sent his cousin Ali to proclaim Barā’ah (Disavowal) on the Day of the Greater Pilgrimage. He announced that after that year no polytheist would perform Hajj and no naked person would circumambulate the House.
What is meant here is not physical impurity, for a disbeliever’s body is pure like anyone else’s. This is evidenced by the fact that Allah Most High permitted sexual relations and direct bodily contact with a woman from the People of the Scripture, and did not command that anything which had touched her (1) be washed.
Muslims have always had physical contact with the bodies of disbelievers, and it has never been reported that they recoiled from them as they recoil from impurities. Rather, as stated above, what is meant is their spiritual impurity arising from polytheism. Just as monotheism and faith are purity, polytheism is impurity.
His words, “If you fear,” O Muslims, “poverty”—that is, poverty and need resulting from preventing the polytheists from approaching the Sacred Mosque, whereby the worldly ties and means existing between you and them might be severed—then “Allah will enrich you out of His bounty.” Provision is not confined to a single avenue or place. Whenever one avenue closes, He opens many others. Allah’s bounty is vast and His generosity immense, especially toward one who gives something up for the sake of His noble Countenance, for Allah is the Most Generous of the generous.
Allah fulfilled His promise: He enriched the Muslims out of His bounty and granted them such abundant provision that they became among the wealthiest of people and the greatest of kings.
His words, “if He wills,” make this enrichment contingent upon His will, because worldly wealth is not an inevitable consequence of faith, nor does it indicate Allah’s love. Allah therefore made it contingent upon His will.
Allah grants worldly things to those He loves and those He does not love, but He grants faith and religion only to those He loves.
“Indeed, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise”: His knowledge ⦗334⦘ is vast. He knows who is suited to wealth and who is not, and He places all things where they belong and assigns them their proper stations.
The noble verse—namely, His words, “So let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year”—also indicates that, after the polytheists had held sovereignty and leadership over the House, authority passed after the Conquest to the Messenger of Allah and the believers, even though the polytheists continued to reside around the House and in honored Makkah. Then this verse was revealed.
By the time the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) died, he had ordered that they be expelled from the Hijāz so that two religions would not remain there. All of this was intended to keep every disbeliever away from the Sacred Mosque and therefore falls under His words, “So let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year.”