97—because they committed what was forbidden despite being able to refrain from it.

Al-Bukhārī narrated in his Sahīh that Abū al-Aswad said:

“A military levy was imposed on the people of Medina, and I enrolled. I then met ‘Ikrimah and told him, but he forbade me in the strongest terms. He then said: ‘Ibn ‘Abbās informed me that some Muslims were with the polytheists, swelling their ranks against the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. An arrow would be shot, striking and killing one of them, or one would be struck and killed. Then Allah revealed:

“Indeed, those whose souls the angels take while they are wronging themselves.”’”

Surah al-Nisā’, 97.

But if they were unable to refrain from marching out—such that the polytheists would kill them if they did not, or something similar—then they bear no sin in the Hereafter. For it is narrated that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“An army will march against this House, and while they are on an open plain, the earth will swallow them up.”

Then Umm