Overview (Verse 188)
 
Honesty at All Times
 
Within this context of fasting and abstention from food and drink, the sūrah sounds another warning, this time against usurping other people’s possessions. The verse refers specifically to presenting false and fraudulent evidence before a judge or an arbiter in order to obtain a favourable judgement giving one the right to appropriate someone else’s property. To reinforce the sense of deterrence, the warning follows immediately after reference to the bounds set by God and the call for more consciousness and fear of Him.
 
Do not devour one another’s property wrongfully, nor bribe with it the judges in order that you may sinfully, and knowingly, deprive others of any part of what is rightfully theirs. (Verse 188)
 
Commenting on this verse, Ibn Kathīr cites a report by `Alī ibn Abī Ţalĥah who quotes Ibn `Abbās, a cousin and Companion of the Prophet, as saying that the verse refers to someone owing money to another. Knowing that the creditor has no document to prove the debt, the debtor denies liability altogether. He would then put the matter before a judge, knowing very well that he is in the wrong, taking what is unlawful to him, and has no case whatsoever. He adds that Mujāhid, Sa`īd ibn Jubayr, `Ikrimah, al-Ĥasan, Qatādah, al-Suddī, Muqātil ibn Ĥayyān, and `Abd al- Raĥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam have all warned against contesting a dispute when one knows oneself to be in the wrong. Ibn Kathīr also refers to accounts in al-Bukhārī and Muslim in which Umm Salamah quotes the Prophet as saying: “I am only human. When you come to me for judgement, some of you may have a clearer piece of evidence, and I might be inclined to rule in their favour. If I give someone anything which is not rightly his, it would be as if I have given him a brand of fire; it is up to him to take it or leave it.”
 
Judges decide on prima facie evidence, and the onus of honesty is on the litigants. They are left to their own conscience.
 
Thus we can see how this matter is also closely linked to taqwā, or the sense of God-fearing, as was just retribution and fasting before it. These rulings represent parts of a harmonious and divinely-ordained way of life, firmly bound together in a common framework of maintaining the fear of God, or taqwā. This makes Islam a potent and well integrated system which cannot be fragmented or disconnected, taking some parts of it and discarding others. That would be a gross transgression and a most vile offence against God Almighty.

Overview (Verse 188)
 
Honesty at All Times
 
Within this context of fasting and abstention from food and drink, the sūrah sounds another warning, this time against usurping other people’s possessions. The verse refers specifically to presenting false and fraudulent evidence before a judge or an arbiter in order to obtain a favourable judgement giving one the right to appropriate someone else’s property. To reinforce the sense of deterrence, the warning follows immediately after reference to the bounds set by God and the call for more consciousness and fear of Him.
 
Do not devour one another’s property wrongfully, nor bribe with it the judges in order that you may sinfully, and knowingly, deprive others of any part of what is rightfully theirs. (Verse 188)
 
Commenting on this verse, Ibn Kathīr cites a report by `Alī ibn Abī Ţalĥah who quotes Ibn `Abbās, a cousin and Companion of the Prophet, as saying that the verse refers to someone owing money to another. Knowing that the creditor has no document to prove the debt, the debtor denies liability altogether. He would then put the matter before a judge, knowing very well that he is in the wrong, taking what is unlawful to him, and has no case whatsoever. He adds that Mujāhid, Sa`īd ibn Jubayr, `Ikrimah, al-Ĥasan, Qatādah, al-Suddī, Muqātil ibn Ĥayyān, and `Abd al- Raĥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam have all warned against contesting a dispute when one knows oneself to be in the wrong. Ibn Kathīr also refers to accounts in al-Bukhārī and Muslim in which Umm Salamah quotes the Prophet as saying: “I am only human. When you come to me for judgement, some of you may have a clearer piece of evidence, and I might be inclined to rule in their favour. If I give someone anything which is not rightly his, it would be as if I have given him a brand of fire; it is up to him to take it or leave it.”
 
Judges decide on prima facie evidence, and the onus of honesty is on the litigants. They are left to their own conscience.
 
Thus we can see how this matter is also closely linked to taqwā, or the sense of God-fearing, as was just retribution and fasting before it. These rulings represent parts of a harmonious and divinely-ordained way of life, firmly bound together in a common framework of maintaining the fear of God, or taqwā. This makes Islam a potent and well integrated system which cannot be fragmented or disconnected, taking some parts of it and discarding others. That would be a gross transgression and a most vile offence against God Almighty.