His saying, glorified and exalted is He:

﴿So if they repent and establish prayer and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion. And We detail the verses for a people who know﴾ ﴿And if they break their oaths after their covenant and attack your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief. Indeed, they have no oaths for them; perhaps they will stop﴾

"Repent" means they returned from their state. The repentance from them involves faith. Then Allah, the Most High, coupled their faith with the establishment of prayer and the giving of zakah. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: This verse has made the blood of the people of the qiblah unlawful. And Ibn Zayd said: Allah has coupled prayer with zakah and was not pleased with one of them without the other.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And based on this, Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, acted at the time of the apostasy.

The brotherhood in religion is the brotherhood of Islam. The plural of brother from it is: brothers, and its plural from lineage is: [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: ikhwa]. Some linguists have said that the brother from lineage is also pluralized as [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: ikhwan]. This is evident from His saying, the Most High: ﴿And it is not upon yourselves that you eat from your houses or the houses of your fathers or the houses of your mothers or the houses of your brothers or the houses of your sisters﴾ [An-Nur: 61]. This is clarified by His saying at the end of the verse: ﴿or your friends﴾ [An-Nur: 61]. Likewise, His saying in this surah: ﴿Say, if your fathers and your sons and your brothers and your wives﴾ [At-Tawbah: 24]. As for the brother from affection, in the Book of Allah: ﴿Indeed, the believers are brothers﴾ [Al-Hujurat: 10].

Abu Huraira said in Al-Bukhari: "My brothers from the emigrants are preoccupied with trading in the markets." From all of this, it is valid that the brother is pluralized as [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: ikhwa] and [UNTRANSLATED-LATIN: ikhwan], whether he is from lineage or affection. The detailing of the verses means their clarification and explanation.

And His saying, the Most High: ﴿And if they break their oaths﴾, the verse. Breaking means nullification, and its origin is in everything that was accepted and then dissolved. It is used in oaths and covenants as a metaphor. His saying: ﴿And they attack your religion﴾ means by belittling and waging war and other actions that the polytheists do. This is a metaphor. From it is the saying of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, when he appointed Usama: "If you attack his leadership, then you have attacked the leadership of his father before."

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

It is appropriate here to mention something about the attack of the dhimmi on the religion. The well-known position of Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, is that if he does something like denying the Sharia or insulting the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and the like, he is killed. It is said that if he disbelieves and announces what is known of his belief, he is punished for the announcement and left alone. If he disbelieves in what is not known of his disbelief, such as insults and the like, he is killed. Abu Hanifa said regarding this: He should be given a chance to repent. There is a difference of opinion if the dhimmi insults the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and then converts to Islam out of fear of being killed. The well-known position is that he is left alone. And it has been said by him, blessings and peace be upon him: "Islam wipes out what came before it." In the "Atabiyyah," it is stated that he is killed and he will not be in a better condition than the Muslim.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿So fight the leaders of disbelief﴾ means: their heads and their prominent figures who lead the people to it. Qatadah said: What is meant by this is Abu Jahl ibn Hisham, and Utbah ibn Rabi'ah, and others.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This - if it is not interpreted that He mentioned them as an example - is weak, because the verse was revealed long after Badr. It has been narrated from Hudhayfah that he said: These have not come yet.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: He means: They have not perished; they will live forever and be killed. The most correct thing regarding this is to say: It does not refer to a specific individual, but rather the matter has occurred with the fighting of the leaders of the renegades of the covenants from the disbelievers until the Day of Resurrection without specification. The condition of the disbelievers of the Arabs and the enemies of the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, necessitated that the reference be to them first by His saying: ﴿leaders of disbelief﴾. They were present at that time under the term, as the one who undertakes to fight the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, and to oppose the core of his legislation is the leader of all who disbelieve in that legislation until the Day of Resurrection. Then, in every generation of disbelievers, there will be specific leaders for each generation.

Nafi', Ibn Kathir, and Abu 'Amr read: "leaders" with one hamzah followed by a broken yāʾ. It has been narrated from Nafi' that the hamzah is prolonged, and Ibn Abi Uways narrated from him: "leaders" with two hamzahs. Its original form is: "A'ammimah" with the weight of Af'īlah, the plural of Imam, like 'imād and 'umūd. The movement of the mīm was transferred to the hamzah which is the root of the verb, and the mīm was assimilated into the other mīm, and the hamzah was turned into a yāʾ due to its breaking and the gathering of two hamzahs from one word.

Asim, Ibn 'Amir, Hamzah, and Al-Kisai read: "leaders" and the reasoning is the same, except that they did not turn the hamzah into a yāʾ. Al-Musayyib read from Nafi': "āyimah" with a prolonged hamzah, and Hisham read from Abu 'Amr with a length between the two hamzahs. The people, the great multitude, read: "no oaths for them" in the plural of yamin, and what is meant is not the negation of oaths altogether, but rather the meaning is: there are no oaths for them that will be fulfilled and honored. This meaning resembles the verse. Al-Hasan, 'Atā, and Ibn 'Amir alone from the seven read: "no faith for them," and this has two possible interpretations; one of them is: no belief. Abu Ali said: This is not strong because it is a repetition, as he described the leaders of disbelief as having no faith. The interpretation of the broken alif is that it is a source from 'āmana with faith, and from it is His saying, exalted is He: (He made them secure from fear). The meaning is that they are not granted security as the people of the covenant, the People of the Book, are granted, as the polytheists have nothing but Islam or the sword. Abu Hatim said: Al-Hasan interpreted his reading: no Islam for them.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And the repetition that Abu Ali fled from is directed because it is an explanation of the ambiguous that necessitates their killing.