Chapter 2: Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verse 194-195
Translation:
A sacred month for a sacred month: sacred things too are subject to retaliation. If anyone attacks you, attack him as he attacked you. Have fear of God, and know that God is with the righteous. Give generously for the cause of God and do not with your own hands cast yourselves into destruction. Be charitable; God loves the charitable. (194-195)
Commentary:
Fighting during
the sacred months (Muharram, Rajab, Dhi Qada, Dhu Al hijja) or fighting within
the precincts of Makkah is forbidden. But if opponents commit aggression in
these months, believers may fight back in self-defence. But while fighting,
believers must abstain from all atrocities, they should not transgress any
bounds set by God—if they truly fear God—even at times of great provocation
as in a state of war.
More than
anything else, the struggle for the cause of God demands the expenditure of
money. It is the sacrifice of wealth, which man finds most difficult. That is
why the Quran enjoins us to regard the cause of God as our own cause and to
spend generously for the cause of religion. If we fail to do so, we are inviting
our own destruction in this world as well as in the next. If man does not
surrender all that he has to God, why should God give what He has to him?
Man thinks that the best use of his wealth is to spend it to spend it on himself or his family. But the Quran calls this the way to destruction. The proper use of wealth is to spend generously for the cause of religion. This will make man deserving: of God’s blessings He will receive diving succour in this world and will be rewarded with paradise in the hereafter.