IN my final year at Secondary School, we sat for a mock examination which we took as seriously as sitting for WAEC because, if you did well in the mock, you were almost certain that your WAEC examination would be a success.
So we prepared very well for the mock because, in those days, “miracle centres” were unheard of. It was simply between you and your examination questions, and you had to sort yourself out.
During an IRK mock examination, I saw a question that caught my interest:
“All the wars Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) embarked upon were defensive, not offensive. Discuss.”
Although I could not remember our IRK teacher teaching that exact topic as a standalone lesson, I remembered that he had taught us about the many battles during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet ﷺ and, more importantly, the reasons behind them.
Alhamdulillah, I did justice to the question, and my answer contributed to my scoring an A1 in my mock IRK examination.
Our IRK teacher was impressed by the way I answered the question and became confident that I would pass my WAEC.
That experience stayed with me.
It encouraged me, in my own little way, to continue learning about the life of the Holy Prophet ﷺ and about issues surrounding Islam that are sometimes misunderstood, misrepresented or deliberately presented without their historical and textual context.
And this brings me to something I encountered this week. While scrolling through social media, I came across a post about some men and a woman who claimed to be Muslims and were reportedly being tried over the kidnapping and murder of a Christian woman after a ransom demand.
According to the report being discussed, the woman who was accused of the crime claimed that Islam had directed her to do what she did because her victim was an “infidel.”
Muslims, understandably, flooded the comment section to reject the claim.
Then a Christian sister joined the discussion and posted a quotation from Surah Muhammad, verse 4 as evidence that Islam permits Muslims to kill non-Muslims.
And that was where I stopped scrolling.
Not because I wanted to attack her.
Not because I wanted to tell her that she had no right to question Islam.
And certainly not because I believe Muslims should become defensive whenever someone raises a difficult question about our religion.
Rather, I stopped because this is precisely the kind of issue we need to discuss honestly and intellectually.
What Does Surah Muhammad 47:4 Actually Say?
Let us first acknowledge what the verse actually says.
Surah Muhammad 47:4 speaks about encountering disbelievers in battle. It then discusses overpowering combatants, taking captives and, after the fighting, either releasing them as an act of favour or accepting ransom until the war comes to an end.
That context matters.
A great deal.
There is an enormous difference between quoting a Qur’anic command concerning an armed battle and presenting it as a general instruction to Muslims to kill anyone who is not a Muslim.
Those are two completely different propositions.
The Qur’an itself makes this distinction elsewhere.
In Surah Al-Baqarah 2:190, Muslims are instructed to fight those who fight them, while explicitly prohibiting transgression. And the Qur’an continues in the following verses by stating that if the opposing side ceases fighting, aggression must cease.
Then there is another instruction that is particularly important in this discussion.
Allah says in Surah Al-Anfal 8:61 that if the enemy inclines towards peace, Muslims should also incline towards peace.
So if someone takes one sentence about a battlefield, removes the words surrounding it, removes the historical circumstances, removes the rules governing warfare and then presents it as a universal command to kill non-Muslims, are we really allowing the Qur’an to speak for itself?
Or are we making the Qur’an say something that the isolated quotation appears to say?
The Word “Battle” Changes Everything
Imagine reading a sentence in a military history book which says:
“When you meet the enemy in battle…”
Would any reasonable person interpret that sentence as:
“Go and attack every person who belongs to the enemy’s religion, wherever you find them, whether they are fighting you or not”?
Of course not.
The setting matters.
The people being addressed matter.
The circumstances matter.
The preceding verses matter.
The verses that follow matter.
And the broader teachings of the same scripture matter. This is why responsible interpretation requires more than copying and pasting one verse into a social-media argument.
Does Islam Permit Muslims to Kill Christians Simply Because They Are Christians?
No.
And this is where the accusation made in that social-media discussion becomes particularly problematic.
The Qur’an explicitly speaks about people of other faiths who do not fight Muslims.
In Surah Al-Mumtahanah 60:8, Allah says that Muslims are not forbidden from treating those who have neither fought them on account of religion nor expelled them from their homes with kindness and justice.
That is not the language of a religion instructing its followers to murder peaceful neighbours because they belong to another faith.
And this distinction is important in Nigeria today.
A Christian is not automatically an enemy of a Muslim.
A Muslim is not automatically an enemy of a Christian.
Religion and criminality must not be deliberately mixed together.
If a Muslim kidnaps, rapes, murders or collects ransom from an innocent person, that person is a criminal.
His religion does not transform his crime into an act of worship.
And if the criminal happens to be a Muslim, Muslims should have the courage to say so plainly:
He is wrong.
Not: He is Muslim, therefore his crime must somehow be Islamic.”
Criminals Do Not Become Religious Authorities
This is perhaps the most dangerous part of the whole argument.
Someone commits a horrific crime and then claims:
“Islam told me to do it.”
Should we accept that statement simply because the person says it?
If a Christian criminal commits murder and says, “Jesus told me to do it,” would Christians accept that as an accurate representation of Christianity?
If a politician steals public money and says, “God told me to take it,” should we immediately conclude that God endorses corruption?
Of course not.
We examine the person’s claim against the actual teachings of the religion.
The same standard must be applied to Islam.
A criminal cannot become an Islamic scholar merely by quoting Arabic words.
And a murderer cannot turn murder into jihad simply by placing the name of Allah beside his crime.
But Muslims Must Also Be Honest
Having said all this, I believe Muslims have a responsibility too.
We should not respond to every uncomfortable question by saying:
“You are an Islamophobe.”
That solves nothing.
We should know our history.
We should understand the Qur’an. We should learn the circumstances surrounding the Prophet’s ﷺ battles.
And when there are different scholarly interpretations concerning a historical or theological question, we should acknowledge them honestly rather than pretending that every Muslim scholar throughout history has interpreted every issue in exactly the same way.
Defending Islam does not require intellectual dishonesty.
In fact, Islam should not need dishonesty to defend it.
Read the Whole Qur’an
One of the greatest mistakes we can make, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, is to treat the Qur’an like a collection of disconnected quotations.
The Qur’an is not a book of social-media captions.
A verse should not be ripped from its surrounding passage simply because the isolated sentence makes a convenient argument.
Surah Muhammad 47:4 is about fighting in the context of war and what happens to combatants who are defeated, including the treatment of prisoners and the possibility of release or ransom.
Surah Al-Baqarah 2:190 places a prohibition on transgression in warfare.
Surah Al-Anfal 8:61 instructs Muslims to accept peace when the opposing side genuinely inclines towards peace.
And Surah Al-Mumtahanah 60:8 recognises kindness and justice towards those who do not fight Muslims or expel them from their homes. These verses deserve to be read together.
My Appeal to Both Muslims and Christians
To my Christian brothers and sisters, I respectfully say:
Ask questions about Islam.
Question us.
Challenge us.
Ask us to explain difficult verses.
But please, when you quote the Qur’an, quote it accurately and in context.
And to my fellow Muslims, I say:
Do not be afraid of questions.
Learn your religion well enough to explain it.
Do not allow criminals, extremists or ignorant people to become the spokespersons of Islam.
And please, let us stop defending our faith with anger when knowledge would do a better job.
My old IRK mock examination question taught me something that has remained with me for decades:
History has a context. Scripture has a context. War has a context. And words have a context.
When we remove the context, we can make almost any sentence appear to mean almost anything.
That is dangerous.
Especially when the subject is a religion followed by more than a billion people.
So before we quote the Qur’an to prove what Muslims believe, let us first do something very simple:
Read what came before the verse.
Read what comes after it. Study why it was revealed.
Study how the Prophet ﷺ lived it.
And then, perhaps, we will discover that the Qur’an is saying something far more profound than the isolated quotation we found on social media.
Please, let us stop quoting the Qur’an out of context.
Because truth does not need a truncated verse to defend it.
Note: These are my reflections based on my humble understanding of the Qur’an and the Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ. Allah knows best. Allahu A‘lam.
- Mairo Mudi writes from Suleja, Niger State and she can be reached via mairommuhammad@gmail.com.