Ala-Maududi
(9:111) Surely Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their belongings and in
return has promised that they shall have Paradise.[106] They fight in the Way of
Allah, and slay and are slain. Such is the promise He has made incumbent upon Himself in the
Torah, and the Gospel, and the Qur’an.[107] Who is more faithful to his promise than
Allah? Rejoice, then, in the bargain you have made with Him. That indeed is the mighty triumph.
106. In this verse that aspect of the Islamic faith which determines the nature of the
relationship between Allah and His servants has been called a transaction. This means that faith
is not merely a metaphysical conception but is, in fact, a contract by which the servant sells
his life and possessions to Allah and in return for this accepts His promise that He would give
him the Garden in the life after death. In order to comprehend the full implications of this
transaction, let us first understand its nature.
We should note it well at the outset that, in reality, this transaction is not in regard to the
actual selling of the life and possessions of the servant to Allah in the literal sense, for
Allah is in fact the real Owner of man’s life and possessions. Allah alone has the right of
ownership because He is the Creator of man and of everything he possesses and uses. Therefore
there is no question at all of selling and buying in the worldly sense; for man possesses
nothing of his own to sell, and Allah has no need to buy anything because everything already
belongs to Him. However, there is one thing which has entirely been entrusted to man by Allah,
that is, the freedom of will and the freedom of choice, and the transaction concerns that thing.
Of course, it is true that this freedom does not make any change in the real position of man with
regard to the right of ownership to his own life and his possessions. They belong to Allah Who
has delegated to him only the authority to use or abuse these things as he wills, without any
coercion or compulsion from Him. This means that man has been given the freedom to acknowledge
or not to acknowledge that Allah is the owner of his life and property. The transaction
mentioned in Ayat 111 is concerning the voluntary surrender of this freedom to Allah’s will. In
other words, Allah wills to test man whether he acknowledges the ownership of Allah over his
life and property, in spite of that freedom, and considers himself to be their trustee only, or
behaves as if he were their owner and so could do whatever he liked with them.
Thus, the terms of this transaction from Allah’s side are these: “If you voluntarily, and not by
compulsion or coercion, agree to acknowledge that your life, your property and everything in
this world, which in fact belong to me, are mine: And if you consider yourself only as their
trustees; And if you voluntarily surrender the freedom I have given you to behave; And if you,
in a dishonest way do not intend to become their master and owner; Then, I will give you in
return, Gardens in the eternal life of the next world”. The one who makes this bargain with
Allah is a believer, for faith is in fact the other name for making this bargain. On the other
hand, the one who refuses to make this bargain, or after making it adopts the attitude of the
one who has not made the bargain, is a kafir. For, technically, kufr is the term applied to the
refusal to make this bargain.
The following are the implications of making this transaction:
(1) Allah has put man to two very hard tests in this matter. The first is whether he acknowledges
the real Owner as owner, in spite of the freedom of choice given to him. Or he refuses this and
becomes ungrateful, treacherous and rebellious. The second test is whether he puts his trust in
his God or not. And he surrenders his freedom and sacrifices his desires and wishes in this
present world in return for His promise of the Gardens and eternal bliss in the next world. Even
though the world were to proclaim, “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush”.
(2) This matter helps to draw a clear line of demarcation between the legal conception of the
Islamic faith and the higher and spiritual one according to which Allah will judge one in the
Hereafter.
According to its legal conception, the mere verbal profession of the articles of the faith is a
sufficient proof that one is legally a Muslim and after this no jurist is authorized to declare
such a one to be a disbeliever or to expel one from the fold of the Islamic community, unless
there is a definite and clear proof that the one made a false profession of the faith. But this
is not so with Allah. Allah considers the faith of only that person to be true, who makes this
bargain with Him and sells his freedom of thought and action to Him and gives up his entire
claim to ownership in His favor. That is why a man might profess the articles of the faith and
observe the prescribed obligatory duties, but if he considered himself alone to be the master
and owner of his body and soul, his heart and brain and his other faculties, his property and
his resources and other things in his possession, and reserved to himself the right of expending
them as he willed, he shall be regarded a disbeliever in the sight of Allah, even though he
should be regarded a believer in the sight of the world. This is because such a man has not made
that bargain with God which is the essence of the faith according to the Quran. The very fact
that a man does not expend his life and property in the way Allah approves of, or expends these
in the way He disapproves, shows that the one who claimed to profess the faith either did not
sell these to Allah, or after having made the transaction still regarded himself to be their
master and owner.
(3) The above conception of the Islamic faith draws a clear line of demarcation between the
attitude of a Muslim and that of a disbeliever towards life. The Muslim, who sincerely believes
in Allah, surrenders himself completely to Allah’s will, and does nothing whatsoever which may
show that he is independent in his attitude, except when he temporarily forgets the terms of the
bargain he has made with Him. Likewise no community of the Muslims can collectively adopt an
independent attitude in political, cultural, economic, social and international matters and
still remain Muslim. And if sometimes it temporarily forgets its subordinate position and its
voluntary surrender of its freedom, it will give up the attitude of independence and readopt the
attitude of surrender, as soon as it becomes aware of its error. In contrast to this, if one
adopts the attitude of independence towards Allah and makes decisions about all the affairs of
life in accordance with ones own wishes, whims and caprices, one shall be regarded to have
adopted the attitude of disbelief, even though one was a Muslim or a non-Muslim.
(4) It should also be noted well that the will of God to which a man is required to surrender
himself is that which is specified by Allah himself and not the one which the man himself
declares to be the will of God. For in the latter case one does not follow God’s will but one’s
own will, which is utterly against the terms of the transaction. Only that person (or community)
who adopts the attitude that conforms to the teachings of His Book and His Messenger, shall be
deemed to have fulfilled the terms of the transaction.
From the above implications of this transaction, it also becomes clear why the fulfillment of the
terms by Allah has been deferred to the next world after the termination of the life of this
world. It is obvious that the Garden is not the return for the mere profession that the buyer
has sold his life and property to Allah but it is the actual surrender of these things in the
worldly life and their disposal by him as a trustee of Allah according to His will. Thus, this
transaction will be completed only when the life of the buyer comes to an end in this world and
it is proved that after making the bargain, he went on fulfilling the terms of the agreement up
to his last breath. For then and there alone, he will be entitled to the recompense in
accordance with the terms of the transaction.
It will also be worthwhile to understand the context in which this matter has been placed here.
In the preceding passage, there was the mention of those people who failed in the test of their
faith and did not make the sacrifice of their time, money, life and interests for the sake of
Allah and His Way, in spite of their professions, because of their negligence or lack of
sincerity or absolute hypocrisy. Therefore after criticizing the attitudes of different persons
and sections, they have been told in clear words the implications of the faith they had
accepted: “This is not the mere verbal profession that there is God and He is One, but the
acceptance of the fact that He is the Owner and the Master of your lives and possessions.
Therefore, if you are not ready and willing to sacrifice these in obedience to the command of
Allah, but expend these and your energies and resources against the will of Allah, it is a clear
proof that you were false in your profession of the faith. For, the true believers are those who
have truly sold their persons and possessions to Allah, and consider Him to be their Owner and
Master, and expend their energies and possessions without any reservations, where He commands
them to expend, and do not expend the least of these where He forbids them to expend.
107. Some critics say that the statement of promise in the Torah and the Gospel is not confirmed
by these Books. Their objection in regard to the Gospel is obviously wrong for even in the
existing Gospels there are sayings of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) that confirm this verse.
For instance:
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.” (MAT. 5: 10).
“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
(MAT. 10: 39).
“And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold and shall inherit
everlasting life.” (MAT. 19: 29).
It is, however, true that the matter of this transaction is not confirmed in its entirety by the
existing Torah. For instance, there is a mention of the first part of the bargain at several
places in one forth or the other: “Is not He thy father that hath bought thee? hath He not made
thee, and established thee?” (DEUT. 32: 6).
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (DEUT. 6: 4-5).
But as regards the other part of the bargain, that is, the promise of the Gardens, they applied
it to the land of Palestine:
“Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may
increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth
with milk and honey.” (DEUT. 6: 3).
This is because the Torah does not give any conception of the life-after-death, the Day of
Judgment, rewards and punishments in the Hereafter, though this creed has always been an
inseparable part of the right way. This does not, however, mean that the Torah did not
originally contain this creed. The fact is that the Jews had become so materialistic during the
period of their degeneration that they had no other idea of a reward from God than the wellbeing
and prosperity in this world. Therefore they perverted all the promises made by God in return
for man’s service and obedience to Him and applied those to the land of Palestine.
In this connection, it should also be noted that the abovementioned changes became possible
because the original Torah had been tampered with in several ways. Some portions were taken away
from it and others were added to it. Thus, the Torah in the existing form is not purely the word
of God but also contains the comments, etc. of the Jewish scholars mixed up with it. So much so
that at some places it becomes difficult to distinguish the word of God from the Jewish
traditions, their racial prejudices, their superstitions, their ambitions and, wishes, their
legal interpretations, etc. all of which have gotten mixed with the word of God. (Surah Al-Imran, ayat 4) note 2.
