An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part Fifteen: People Don’t Win Wars, Allah Wins Wars (The Spoils (al-Anfal) 1-75)

The Spoils (al-Anfal) 1-75
People Don’t Win Wars, Allah Wins Wars.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0

For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com

And now:

The Spoils (al-Anfal) 1-20

“They ask you concerning the anfāl. Say, ‘The anfāl belong to Allah and the Apostle.’ So be wary of Allah and settle your differences, and obey Allah and His Apostle, should you be faithful.”

The commentary for this chapter says that it concerns the division of spoils after the battle of al-Badr. We’ve heard of this before, wherein the Prophet upbraids those who held back for their lack of faith. This chapter is a relatively late Medinan one, so I reckon we can expect more burning again.

It’s an odd subject, since it’s a very specific answer to a very specific issue of a specific time and place, one assumes that by giving a Word of Allah pronouncement on the issue, the Prophet was using the highest authority he could to settle a dispute. I suspect, however, that as with much of the Qur’an it will be couched in such circumspect and allusive language that perhaps “the spoils” could be interpreted as spiritual treasures as much as specific spoils from a battle. We shall see.

So far, so straight forward. Allah reminds the Prophet of the battle, mentioning that some of his company wanted to fight the weaker company of enemies (“unarmed” or “without thorns”) and these were the faithless slackers. Allah sends a “file of angels” to fight alongside the Prophet’s men, as well as a purifying rain to protect their hearts from Satan. And they are exhorted to “strike at the neck and the fingertips” and not to turn their backs on the enemy until they are defeated, but also reminded that victory comes from Allah – “You did not kill them; rather it was Allah who killed them”. Sounds like an abrogation of responsibility to me. Oh, and V14 –“ Taste this, and [know] that for the faithless is the punishment of the Fire’”. Told you.

The Spoils 21-40

“Fight them until faithlessness is no more, and religion becomes exclusively for Allah. But if they relinquish, Allah indeed sees best what they do.”

There’s more of business as usual in this section, and I don’t have a lot to say about it. There are familiar attempts to explain how people can have no faith if Allah is the creator of all men, and on the one hand says that “Had Allah known any good in them, surely He would have made them hear, and were He to make them hear, surely they would turn away, being disregardful”, in other words Allah has pretty much given up on these people and left them to their own faithlessness, but then also that “Allah will not punish them while you are in their midst, nor will Allah punish them while they plead for forgiveness”. Which kind of leaves the window open for conversion. I was entertained by the prayers of polytheists and worshippers of other gods as being like “whistling and clapping”. Because obviously *our* religious services are completely normal and sensible and don’t look odd or pointless to other people; it’s *them* who are the ones on error.

The Spoils 41-60

“And if you fear treachery from a people, break off [the treaty] with them in a like manner. Indeed Allah does not like the treacherous.”

We finally get some kind of concrete details of what to do with the spoils – one fifth goes to “Allah and the Apostle, for the relatives and the orphans, for the needy and the traveller”. Which doesn’t give much indication what to do with the other 4/5ths, but it’s a start. There’s more about how Allah was responsible for winning the battle and how people who doubt that are faithless and hypocrites, with a comparison again to Pharaoh from Exodus. More of the same, really.

The Spoils 61-75

“Avail yourselves of the spoils you have taken as lawful and good, and be wary of Allah. Indeed Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful.”

Avail yourselves of spoils that are "lawful and good", but there’s nothing to say what makes a lawful and good spoil and what makes an unlawful and evil one. The surah ends with a discussion on captives – they are to be offered the chance to convert in which case Allah will be merciful with them. Again, there’s nothing that says what the captors need to be like, nor what happens to the captives who don’t convert. I’d assume that there is some kind of pre-Islamic tradition involving slavery and/or death that would be known and assumed by contemporary listeners, but there’s nothing written down here. So it’s much as I assumed at the start, there’s very little in concrete details (donate 1/5^th of your spoils to Allah, although it doesn’t say who gets to administer this on His behalf, and offer captives the chance to convert, with unknown outcomes in either case). I’m kind of glad that the chapters are getting shorter as they are becoming more succinct at least in their messages. Although I note the next few have more verses in them again.