Exile
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE
[59:7]
Whatever [spoils taken] from the people of those villages God has turned over to His Apostle – [all of it] belongs to God and the Apostle, and the near of kin [of deceased believers], and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, so that it may not be [a benefit] going round and round among such of you as may [already] be rich. Hence, accept [willingly] whatever the Apostle gives you [thereof], and refrain from [demanding] anything that he withholds from you; and remain conscious of God: for, verily, God is severe in retribution.


* v.7 : Sc., and not to individual Muslim warriors. As so often in the Qur’ān, the expression “God and the Apostle” is here a metonym for the Islamic cause, resp. for a government that rules in accordance with the laws of the Qur’ān and the teachings of the Prophet.
* Cf. 8:41, which relates to booty acquired in actual warfare, out of which only one-fifth is to be reserved for the above five categories (see note 41 on 8:41). In distinction from all such booty, the gains obtained through fay’ are to be utilized in their entirety under these five headings. As regards the term ibn as-sabīl (“wayfarer”), see sūrah 2, note 145.
* Respectively, in later times, the head of an Islamic state, who has to decide – in the light of the exigencies – how the share of “God and His Apostle” is to be utilized for the common weal.