Overview (Verse 37)

A Change Not Sanctioned by God

The postponement [of sacred months] is only an excess of unbelief in which the unbelievers are led astray. They declare it permissible one year and forbidden another year, so that they may make up the number of the months which God has sanctified, and thus they make lawful what God has forbidden. The evil of their deeds thus seems fair to them. God does not guide those who are unbelievers. (Verse 37)

Mujāhid, an authoritative commentator on the Qur’ān, says that a man from the tribe of Kinānah used to come every year to the pilgrimage riding his donkey and say: “I am not one who may be criticised or return with failure. No one may reject what I say. We have made al-Muĥarram sacred and let Şafar come later.” The following year he would come again and say: “We have made Şafar sacred and let al- Muĥarram come later.” This is the reference in God’s statement to their making up the number of months God has sanctified, which are four. When they delay a sacred month they actually make lawful what God has forbidden.

`Abd al-Raĥmān ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, another leading commentator on the Qur’ān, mentions that this was done in pre-Islamic days by a man from the tribe of Kinānah called al-Qulummus. In those days the Arabs would stop fighting or launching raids on one another in the sacred month. A man would meet his father’s killer and he would not lift a hand to harm him. One day this man gave orders to set out for a raid. When he was told that it was the month of al-Muĥarram, he said: “We will delay it this year. There are two Şafar months this year. Next year we will compensate for this by making them two Muĥarrams.” Indeed the following year, he told them not to launch any raid in Şafar, so that it too was made sacred.

These are two interpretations of the verse and two versions of postponement. In the first version Şafar is made sacred in place of al-Muĥarram to make the sacred months four in number, but not the ones which God has specified since al-Muĥarram is made unsacred. In the other version three months are made sacred one year and five the next year to make up eight, with an average of four a year. This means in effect that the sanctity of al-Muĥarram is lost one year and Şafar is made sacred in another. Both actions represent a violation of God’s law, making lawful what He has forbidden. Both are, as God says, “an excess of unbelief,” because they involve an assumption of the authority to legislate which is an act of unbelief that is added to the actual rejection of the faith.

In this act which is described as an ‘excess of unbelief,’ “the unbelievers are led astray.” (Verse 37) They actually deceive themselves with their ploys and tricks. ‘The evil of their deeds thus seems fair to them.” (Verse 37) They see as fair what is evil and they think deviation from the truth to be a virtue. They are totally unaware of how far astray they have gone and to what depths of unbelief they have sunk.

“God does not guide those who are unbelievers.” (Verse 37) They have placed a shield between their hearts and divine guidance. Hence God abandons them to their unbelief in which they live in total darkness, far removed from God’s guidance.