✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الممتحنة
Al-Mumtahanah
✦ Why this name
The Woman to be Examined — al-Mumtahanah, from verse 10, about women who migrated to Madinah and whose faith was to be assessed.
✦ When it came
Madinan, around the conquest of Makkah. A companion had secretly sent a letter warning the Makkans of the Muslims' movement; it was intercepted, and this surah addresses divided loyalty.
✦ The story
The surah's most important contribution is a distinction that a great deal of later confusion has ignored. It first warns against taking as allies those actively at war with you and driving you from your homes — and then, in the very next breath, says:
*"Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes — from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly."*
Hostility is answered; peaceful difference is not. And the surah adds a hopeful note about enmity itself: *"Perhaps Allah will put between you and those you have been enemies with affection."*
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 7-9
Two different cases
Those who fight you, and those who do not — justice and kindness owed to the second.