Surah 59. Al-Hashr, Ayah 7

Sc., and not to individual Muslim warriors. As so often in the Qur'an, the expression "God and the Apostle" is here a metonym for the Islamic cause, resp. for a government that rules in accordance with the laws of the Qur'an and the teachings of the Prophet.

Cf. 8:41 , which relates to booty acquired in actual warfare, out of which only one-fifth is to be reserved for the above five categories (see note [41] on 8:41 ). In distinction from all such booty, the gains obtained through fay' are to be utilized in their entirety under these five headings. As regards the term ibn as-sabil ("wayfarer"), see surah {2}, note [145].

Respectively, in later times, the head of an Islamic state, who has to decide - in the light of the exigencies - how the share of "God and His Apostle" is to be utilized for the common weal.

"The people of the townships": the townships were the Jewish settlements round Madinah, of the Banu Nadhir, and possibly of other tribes. Cf. the "townships" mentioned in lix. 14 below. The reference cannot be to the Wadi-ul-Qura (Valley of Towns), now Madain Salih, which was subjugated after Khaibar and Fadak in A.H. 7, unless this verse is later than the rest of the Sara.

The Jews had originally come from outside Arabia, and seized on the land near Madinah. They refused to adapt themselves to the people of Arabia, and were in fact a thorn in the side of the genuine Arabs of Madinah. Their dispossession is therefore a restoration of the land to its original people. But the word "Fai" is here understood in a technical sense, as meaning property abandoned by the enemy or taken from him without a formal war. In that sense it is distinguished from "Anfal," or spoils, taken after actual fighting, about which see viii. 1 and 41.

"Belongs to Allah": ie., to Allah's Cause; and the beneficiaries are further detailed. No shares are fixed; they depend upon circumstances, and are left to the judgement of the Leader. Compare a similar list of those entitied to Charity, in ii. 177, but the two fists refer to different circumstances and have different beneficiaries in addition to the portion common to both.