2.190 – Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you

Suddenly, and without warning in the Quran to this point, the theme of conflict appears.

This verse commands the reader or listener to fight, using the Arabic verb qātala. The three following verses contain another command to fight and two commands to kill – using the verb qatala. Commands to fight and kill using these forms appear mainly in Sūras 8 and 9, but several such commands also come in Sūras 2, 4, and 49. In all, there are twelve commands to fight and five commands to kill in the Quran.

These commands often come with conditions regarding who is to fight, the identity of the enemy, the purpose of the fighting, and the extent of hostilities. For example, 2.190 commands those who “believe” (v. 183) to fight against those who are fighting them but not to commit aggression.

Muslim tradition generally relates the quranic commands to fight and kill to particular situations in the story of Muḥammad and his followers. Muslim biographies and commentaries match 2.190–94 with “the truce of Ḥudaybiyya” during the sixth year of Muḥammad’s reign in Medina, when the Muslims were preparing to enter Mecca.

2.190 – in the way of God

When the Quran commands listeners or readers to fight “in the way (sabīl) of Allah,” it makes a theological claim by associating Allah with human fighting. See the analysis of these expressions at 73.20.

Of its forty-nine occurrences in the Quran, the phrase “in the way of Allah” follows the verb qātala (“fight”) fifteen times and jāhada (“struggle”) fourteen times. In Muslim tradition, “in the way of Allah” became inseparable from the concept of holy war.

2.190 – God does not love the aggressors

The Quran contains twenty-four statements about the kinds of people whom Allah does not love and twenty-two statements about the people whom Allah loves (see v. 195). These statements are relevant to the theology of the Quran and its teaching on Allah’s relationship with humans. For this reason the commentary briefly notes the “love” verses throughout.

The “aggressors” (mu‘tadūn) are among the groups most frequently denied the love of Allah (also 5.87; 7.55).