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Sura 3
Aya 118
118
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا لا تَتَّخِذوا بِطانَةً مِن دونِكُم لا يَألونَكُم خَبالًا وَدّوا ما عَنِتُّم قَد بَدَتِ البَغضاءُ مِن أَفواهِهِم وَما تُخفي صُدورُهُم أَكبَرُ ۚ قَد بَيَّنّا لَكُمُ الآياتِ ۖ إِن كُنتُم تَعقِلونَ

Muhammad Asad

O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not take for your bosom-friends people who are not of your kind.1 They spare no effort to corrupt you; they would love to see you in distress.2 Vehement hatred has already come into the open from out of their mouths, but what their hearts conceal is yet worse. We have indeed made the signs [thereof] clear unto you, if you would but use your reason.
  • Lit., "from among others than yourselves". Some of the commentators incline to the view that this expression comprises all non-Muslims: but this view obviously conflicts with 60:8-9, where the believers are expressly allowed to form friendships with such of the non-believers as are not hostile to them and to their faith. Moreover, the sequence makes it clear that by "those who are not of your kind" are meant only people whose enmity to Islam and its followers has become apparent from their behaviour and their utterances (Tabari). The rendering adopted by me, "people who are not of your kind", implies that their outlook on life is so fundamentally opposed to that of the Muslims that genuine friendship is entirely out of the question.
  • Lit., "they love that which causes you distress".