Spoils of War
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[8:72]
BEHOLD, as for those who have attained to faith, and who have forsaken the domain of evil and are striving hard, with their possessions and their lives, in God’s cause, as well as those who shelter and succour [them] – these are [truly] the friends and protectors of one another.
But as for those who have come to believe without having migrated [to your country] – you are in no wise responsible for their protection until such a time as they migrate [to you]. Yet, if they ask you for succour against religious persecution, it is your duty to give [them] this succour – except against a people between whom and yourselves there is a covenant: for God sees all that you do.

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* v.72 : See sūrah 2, note 203. Historically, this expression relates to the Meccan Muslims who migrated with the Prophet to Medina; but the sequence makes it clear that the definitions and injunctions provided by this verse are in the nature of a general law, valid for all times. With all this, it should be noted that the hijrah referred to here has a preponderantly physical connotation, implying an emigration from a non-Muslim country to a country ruled by the Law of Islam.
* This refers, in the first instance, to the ansār at Medina – that is, to the newly-converted Muslims of that town, who gave shelter and whole-hearted aid to the muhājirīn (“emigrants”) from Mecca before and after the Prophet’s own migration thither: but, similar to the spiritual meaning attaching to the terms hijrah and muhājir, the expression ansār transcends its purely historical connotation and applies to all believers who aid and give comfort to “those who flee from evil unto God.”
* I.e., those Muslims who, for some reason or other, remain outside the political jurisdiction of the Islamic state. Since not every non-Muslim country is necessarily a “domain of evil,” I am rendering the phrase wa-lam yuhājirū as “without having migrated [to your country].”
* Lit., “to succour them in religion”: implying that they are exposed to persecution on account of their religious beliefs.
* I.e., a treaty of alliance or of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. Since in such cases an armed intervention of the Islamic state in behalf of the Muslim citizens of a non-Muslim state would constitute a breach of treaty obligations, the Islamic state is not allowed to seek redress by force. A solution of the problem could conceivably be brought about by negotiations between the two states or, alternatively, by an emigration of the persecuted Muslims.