يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ ٱلْيَهُودَ وَٱلنَّصَٰرَىٰٓ أَوْلِيَآءَ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَآءُ بَعْضٍ
"O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians as protectors. They are protectors of one another. Whoever among you takes them as protectors is one of them. God does not guide a wrongdoing people."
The root و-ل-ي: to be near, to be adjoining. Walī — one who stands near, who takes on another's affairs, who stands behind him. The word was treated at al-Tawba 9/71 (baʿḍuhum awliyāʾu baʿḍ) and at al-Mumtaḥana 60/1.
I record this as an observation about the language and transmit it as the lexicographers give it: walāya — the bond of mutual protection — covers not an ordinary human relationship but tying one's affairs to someone, entering his protection, taking his side. The word describes a legal and political bond.
Per the method (Method) a limit must be drawn here: no blanket verdict about a community is drawn from this verse. The ground for this is not an outside consideration but the text's own sentences:
| Note | Where |
|---|---|
| The next verse opens up the subject of the prohibition as changing sides out of fear of war: nakhshā an tuṣībanā dāʾira | 5/52 |
| Six verses later the prohibition is tied to a quality: alladhīna'ttakhadhū dīnakum huzuwan wa laʿiban min alladhīna ūtu'l-kitāb — min is partitive | 5/57 |
| Thirty-one verses later the same sūra speaks in praise: wa la-tajidanna aqrabahum mawaddatan li'lladhīna āmanu'lladhīna qālū innā naṣārā | 5/82 |
| Another sūra lays the measure down openly: kindness and justice towards those who do not fight you are not forbidden | al-Mumtaḥana 60/8-9 |
These four notes are inside the same Book. And 5/82 is inside the same sūra. That is, the sūra itself enters a qualification at verse eighty-two on what it said at verse fifty-one.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is these internal qualifications: the verse does not set up a stance against a religious affiliation; it forbids entering into a relation of protection with the opposing side in a state of conflict. And 5/52 transmits the reasoning of those who do so in their own words: taking sides according to which party will win.
Dāʾira (د-و-ر): what turns, the turning of fortune. The word was treated at al-Tawba 9/98 (yatarabbaṣu bikumu'd-dawāʾir); I rely on that treatment. In both places the same calculation is described: waiting for the outcome and standing accordingly.
وَمَن يَتَوَلَّهُم مِّنكُمْ فَإِنَّهُۥ مِنْهُمْ — and the ruling is tied to an act: man yatawallahum. An attribute, not an identity; the subject of the sentence is an act.