Repentance (At-Tawba)
۞ [This is a declaration of] disassociation, from Allah and His Messenger, to those with whom you had made a treaty among the polytheists. 1 Go ye, then, for four months, backwards and forwards, (as ye will), throughout the land, but know ye that ye cannot frustrate Allah (by your falsehood) but that Allah will cover with shame those who reject Him. 2 And proclaim from Allah and His Noble Messenger to all men on the day of the Great Pilgrimage (Haj) that Allah is disgusted with the polytheists, and so is His Noble Messenger; so if you repent it is better for you; but if you turn away, then know that you cannot escape from Allah; and give the disbelievers the glad tidings of a painful punishment. 3 But excepted shall be - from among those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God - [people] with whom you [O believers] have made a covenant and who thereafter have in no wise failed to fulfil their obligations towards you, and neither have aided anyone against you: observe, then, your covenant with them until the end of the term agreed with them. Verily, God loves those who are conscious of Him. 4 And so, when the sacred months are over, slay those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God wherever you may come upon them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every conceivable place! Yet if they repent, and take to prayer, and render the purifying dues, let them go their way: for, behold, God is much forgiving, a dispenser of grace. 5 And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the words of Allah. Then deliver him to his place of safety. That is because they are a people who do not know. 6