seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Quran 22:58. Those who emigrate in God’s cause, then get killed, or die, God will provide them with fine provisions. God is the Best of Providers.
59. He will admit them an admittance that will please them. God is Knowing and Clement.
60. That is so! Whoever retaliates similarly to the affliction he was made to suffer, and then he is wronged again, God will definitely assist him. God is Pardoning and Forgiving.
61. That is because God merges the night into the day, and He merges the day into the night, and because God is Hearing and Seeing.
62. That is because God is the Reality, and what they invoke besides Him is vanity, and because God is the Sublime, the Grand.
63. Do you not see that God sends down water from the sky, and the land becomes green? God is Kind and Aware.
64. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. God is the Rich, the Praised.
This is today's commentary.
The mere occurrence of the word håjar∂ (they fled) in this verse does not show that it was not revealed at Makkah, for a flight of the faithful to Abyssinia had taken place as early as the fifth year of the Call. Moreover, it should be noted that the Holy Prophet, with Ab∂ Bakr and ‘Alß, were the last men to depart from Makkah on the occasion of the second flight. A true and generous leader of men, he waited to see his faithful followers depart before he left, so that their safety might be ensured. There is no doubt that if he had left his followers behind him, they would have encountered a very hard fate at the hands of an exasperated enemy. The reference to some being slain after their fight is clearly prophetical.
This verse permits the Muslims, who were long persecuted and oppressed, to punish their persecutors, but at the same time recommends pardon and forgiveness by referring to those two attributes of the Divine Being in the concluding words of the verse.
Apparently the succession of the day and the night refers here to the turn of fortune hinted at in the previous verse, because an oppressed community could not punish its persecutors unless it gained the mastery over them. The same is indicated in the two attributes of the Divine Being with which the verse is closed. The verses that follow contain hints to the same effect.
So if God sends me on a mission.... and I get shot at.... it's ok to shoot back. God will guide the bullet. BUT.... He would prefer that I try to be forgiving and kind first.So when my "enemy" fires at me.... It's better for me to yell out "Hey.... why you shooting at me?" Being kind never hurt anyone... unless of course it shows the shooter where you are.... and then... well then it would be in God's hand to guide the bullet or move the rock we're hiding behind.
I've talked about watching westerns.... I'm old and retired and westerns are on every morning. I've always wondered why a six gun can shoot 20 bullets. I've also wondered why two enemies can be no more than 50 feet [across a western town's street] and miss so many times. I wonder if the men in Laramie have a hard time lifting their arms.... after being shot in the shoulder so many times. I've wondered about the self healing fabric they must have used back then. A man can be shot in the shoulder.... and then there is no hole in his shirt in the next scene. Oh they will wear a triangle bandage to hold the shoulder steady... but with that same arm they will grab a double barreled shotgun and blast both barrels. That must not hurt?!?
A lot of the westerns I watch are still in black and white. They were on TV before there was color TV. The moral of the story is always pure white..... and the bad guy always wears a black hat.... but so does Paladine.... who is a hero. It's right or wrong in the westerns.... and gunslingers... no matter how righteous they may be about who and why they use their gun.... are still murderers so they wear a black hat too.
The Muslim, Jewish, Christian.... clashes.... are like those wars in the old westerns. They are black and white.... God is writing the script. The good guy never shoots first. He may pull his weapon.... but he holsters it before shooting..... as if you holler out "Hey.... why are you shooting at me?".
We serve the One True Living God..... and we should not pull our weapons until we have been shot at. Once we've been shot at.... we should try to talk them down... if that doesn't work.... well God will guide the bullet.
They didn't have bullets back in 658AD when this was likely set to paper. It was not quite so black and white. They didn't have guns back then.... gunpowder wasn't around until about 900 AD. The decision to kill was more personal.
God decides every battle.
