Verses 1–6
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful
This sūrah was revealed in Mecca and consists of 6 verses. It orders the Prophet to publicly dissociate himself from the disbelievers’ religion, and to foretell that they will never embrace his. Therefore, neither will his religion spill over to them, nor will their religion spill over to him. He will never worship what they worship, and they will never worship what he worships. Hence, they should despair of any compromise or remission from the Prophet.
Exegetes differ over whether the chapter was revealed in Mecca or Medina, but its theme matches the Meccan chapters.
Commentary
قُلْ يَا أَيُّهَا الْكَافِرُونَ ١
(109:1) Say: O disbelievers (al-kāfirūn)!
Apparently the definite article al- (the) in al-kāfirūn [not translated in the English] refers to a specific and known group of disbelievers, not to all disbelievers. This can be confirmed by the subsequent verses, where the Prophet is ordered to declare to them his dissociation from their religion, and their rejection of his.
لا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ ٢
(109:2) I will not serve what (mā) you serve (taʿbudūna).
From this verse on, the sūrah consists of the script given to the Prophet. What you serve refers to the idols that they used to worship.
I will not (lā) serve…: This is in the future tense, because the negative particle lā (not) negates the future, just as the negative particle mā (not) negates the present. The meaning is: “I shall never worship the idols that you are worshiping today.”
وَلا أَنتُمْ عَابِدُونَ مَا أَعْبُدُ ٣
(109:3) And you will not serve what (mā) I serve.
This is also in the future tense. That is, the verse forecasts that the disbelievers in question will never enter the monotheistic religion in future. Adding the command Say () at the beginning of the sūrah to these two verses [], the meaning is: “God has ordered me to continue serving Him forever, and to foretell to you that you will never worship Him. Therefore, it is not ever possible to find a common religious ground between us.” Hence, this verse is similar in meaning to: The word has been realized against most of them; they shall not believe (); As for the faithless, it is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not have faith (). It would have been more appropriate for the verse to use the Arabic particle man (who) instead of mā (what). However, the latter is used for parallelism with the previous verse: I will not serve what (mā) you serve ().
وَلا أَنَا عَابِدٌ مَّا عَبَدتُّمْ ٤ وَلا أَنتُمْ عَابِدُونَ مَا أَعْبُدُ ٥
(109:4-5) And I will not be a servant of what (mā) you have served. And you will not serve what (mā) I serve.
The content of the previous two sentences is repeated for emphasis. A similar repetition is seen in these verses: Nay! You will come to know. Again, nay! You will come to know (); Perish he, the way he appraised! Again, perish he! The way he appraised ().
Some have said: The particle mā in these two verses serves to turn the verb that follows it into a verbal noun (called maṣdariyyah). The meaning would be: “And I will not be a servant of your service. And you will not serve my service.” Hence, the four verses [] together say: “We have nothing in common: neither in the object that we serve [], nor in the manner of our practice []. That is because my object of devotion is God, while yours is the idols. And my way of service is what God has ordained for me, while your way of service is what you have invented out of ignorance and false ascription [to God].” Accordingly, these two verses [] are not repeated merely for emphasis.
However, this interpretation is far from what springs to the mind from the verses. In our examination of narrations we shall present another explanation for the repetition in these verses, which is quite subtle.
لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ٦
(109:6) To you be (lakum) your religion, and to me (lī) my religion (dīn).
This reiterates what was said before: that there is no commonality between the two parties. The letter lām [in lakum and lī] shows exclusive affiliation and possession (ikhtiṣāṣ). The meaning is: “Your religion—which is the worship of idols—exclusively belongs to you and does not include me. Similarly, my religion exclusively belongs to me and does not include you.” The verse should not be construed to mean that it is permissible to adopt whatever religion one likes, or that the Prophet never opposed their religion after that. That would be against the call to the truth which is at the core of the Qur’an’s mission.
Two other suggested views are:
- The word dīn in this verse means jazāʾ (payment, compensation, reward). The meaning is: “To you belongs your recompense, and to me belongs my recompense.”
- There is an omitted muḍāf (annexed noun, construct noun) in the verse. The implied meaning is: “To you be the reward of your religion, and to me be the reward of my religion.”
Comment: Both views are far from what springs to the mind at first.
Examining Narrations
- Al-Walīd b. al-Mughīrah, al-ʿĀṣ b. Wāʾil, al-Aswad b. al-Muṭṭalib and Umayyah b. Khalaf met the Messenger of God and said: “O Muḥammad! Here’s an offer: We will worship what you worship, and you worship what we worship, so we’ll all be in the same boat. This way, if our path is more correct than yours, then you will have some share of it. And if your path is more correct than ours, then we will have a share of it.” Then God revealed: Say: O disbelievers! I will not serve what you serve (), to the end of the sūrah.
- Once Abū Shākir asked Abū Jaʿfar al-Aḥwal about the verses: Say: O disbelievers! I will not serve what you serve. And you will not serve what I serve. And I will not be a servant of what you have served. And you will not serve what I serve (). He asked: “Does a wise speaker speak like this, repeating himself again and again?” Abū Jaʿfar al-Aḥwal did not have an answer to that.
When he went to Medina, he asked the question to Imam al-Ṣādiq. The Imam said: “The context of revelation of these verses and their repetition was that the Quraysh told the Messenger of God: ‘You worship our gods for a year, and we will worship your god for a year. Then you worship our gods for a year, and we will worship your god for a year.’ So God replied to them in the same manner. In response to ‘You worship our gods for a year,’ He said, Say: O disbelievers! I will not serve what you serve (). In response to ‘We will worship your god for a year,’ He said, And you will not serve what I serve () In response to ‘Then you worship our gods for a year,’ He said, And I will not be a servant of what you have served (). And in response to ‘We will worship your god for a year,’ He said, And you will not serve what I serve. To you be your religion, and to me my religion ().”
So Abū Jaʿfar al-Aḥwal returned to Abū Shākir [in Kūfah] and told him this, at which point Abū Shākir retorted, “This must have been carried by the camels from Hejaz.”
Author’s comment: The Quraysh repeated themselves to indicate a continuous cycle of worshiping their gods for a year, and then worshiping God for a year.
That is, the verses are addressed to a specific group of people following a specific set of beliefs. (Trans.) ↩︎
There is an omitted pronoun at the end of the word taʿbudūna (you serve), indicating the object of their worship. It is omitted because it is indicated by the relative pronoun mā (what), and to maintain the rhyme of the verses. The same is true for the objects of the verbs at the end of the next three verses: aʿbudu (I serve; ), ʿabadtum (you have served; ), aʿbudu (I serve; ). (Auth.) ↩︎
In other words, the verses are about one’s way of worship, not one’s object of worship. (Ed.) ↩︎
Al-Durr al-manthūr, on the authority of Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim and Ibn al-Anbarī’s al-Maṣāḥif, on the authority of Saʿīd b. Mīnāʾ, the freedman of Abū al-Bakhtarī. A similar account to this is narrated from Ibn Mīnāʾ by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī in al-Amālī, on the authority of a number of his companions. ↩︎
Tasfīr al-Qummī, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn Abī ʿUmayr. ↩︎