Repentance (At-Tawba)
۞ This is a declaration of immunity from God and His Messenger to the polytheists, with whom you had made agreements. 1 Travel freely in the land for four months, and bear in mind that you cannot escape from Allah, and that Allah will humiliate the disbelievers. 2 This is a public proclamation by Allah and His Messenger to all people on the day of the Great Pilgrimage: "Allah is free from all obligation to those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity; and so is His Messenger. If you repent, it shall be for your own good; but if you turn away, then know well that you will not be able to frustrate Allah. So give glad tidings of a painful chastisement to those who disbelieve. 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 When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Take them and confine them, then lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and establish the prayer and pay the obligatory charity, let them go their way. Allah is Forgiving and the Most Merciful. 5 And if any of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God seeks thy protection, grant him protection, so that he might [be able to] hear the word of God [from thee]; and thereupon convey him to a place where he can feel secure: this, because they [may be] people who [sin only because they] do not know [the truth]. 6