Verse 2:190 – Fighting as a Reaction of Being Fought Against
وَقَاتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ وَلَا تَعْتَدُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ الْمُعْتَدِينَ
And fight in the way of Allah the ones who fight you, but do not transgress; surely Allah does not love the transgressors.5
(Qur'an 2:190)
This verse clearly defines combat as a response to an enemy's aggression.6
Some people believe that this verse has been completely abrogated or annulled (the concept of naskh) because they happen to find some statements by the early scholars suggesting that. This presumption is however false, as the early scholars did not argue that the word “naskh” meant a total annulment of the verse and its meaning. However, to provide more details on naskh, this topic must be addressed in a separate paper.
Notes
- Note: Unlike in the original edition, the translation of the Qur'an into the English language was not put together by the author. ↩
- This verse directly precedes the verse which some non-Muslims like to take out of context: “And kill them wherever you catch them, and drive them out from where they drove you out…”; not or barely considering the wording nor message of the verse, even less the context of the verse. ↩