(O ye who believe! Choose not My enemy and your enemy for allies…) [60:1].
A group of Qur'anic exegetes said: “This verse was revealed about Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah. It happened that Sarah, the client of Abu 'Amr ibn Sayfi ibn Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf travelled from Mecca to Medina to see the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, and found him getting ready to conquer Mecca. He asked her: 'Have you come as a Muslim?' When she answered in the negative, he asked: 'What has brought you here, then?' She said: 'You were my family, my clan and my patrons; I am in desperate need and have come so that you give me and clothe me'. He said: 'What happened to all the youths of Mecca', he asked her this because she was a singer. She said: 'No one has ever requested anything from me after the Battle of Badr!' The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, encouraged the Banu 'Abd al-Muttalib and the Banu'l-Muttalib to be generous to her. They clothed her, gave her money and provided her with a mount. Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah then got in touch with her, gave her ten pieces of gold and gave her a letter to hand over to the people of Mecca. He wrote in this letter: 'From Hatib to the people of Mecca: The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, is about to attack you, so take precautions'. Sarah left and Gabriel, peace be upon him, came down and informed the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, of what Hatib had done. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, sent 'Ali, 'Ammar, al-Zubayr, Talhah, al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad and Abu Marthad - who were all horsemen - saying to them: 'Proceed to the meadow of Khakh. You will find there a woman on a camel-borne sedan chair. This woman has a letter from Hatib to the idolaters. Take that letter from her and let her go. But if she refuses to hand over the letter to you, behead her'. They proceeded to that location and found the woman there. They asked her: 'Where is the letter?' She swore by Allah that she did not have any letter with her. They searched her belongings but could not find the letter. They were about to leave when 'Ali said: 'By Allah, he did not tell us a lie, nor do we disbelieve in what he said to us'. He unsheathed his sword and said: 'Give us the letter or, by Allah, I will strip you of your clothes and then severe your head'. When she saw the seriousness of the matter, she got out the letter from her lock, for she had hid it in her hair, and they let her go. They went back to the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace. He sent for Hatib and when the latter came, the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, asked him: 'Do you recognize this letter?' And when he answered in the affirmative, he asked: 'What drove you to do it?' He said: 'O Messenger of Allah, by Allah, I have not disbelieved since I became Muslim, nor did I betray you since I took your side, nor did I love them [the idolaters] since I departed from them. However, there is not a single person among the Emigrants except that he has someone to defend his closest relatives [in Mecca]. And since I am a stranger among them, and my family lives amongst them, I feared for them, and so I wanted to have some assistance from them, even though I knew that Allah will send His harm upon them and that my letter will be of no avail to them'. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, believed and forgave him. This verse was then revealed (O ye who believe! Choose not My enemy and your enemy for allies…). 'Umar ibn al-Khattab stood up and said: 'O Messenger of Allah, let me strike the neck of this hypocrite!' But the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, said: 'O 'Umar, what do you know? It could be that Allah has looked at the people of Badr and said: 'Do what you please for I have forgiven you' ”.
Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn 'Amr informed us> Muhammad ibn Ya'qub> al-Rabi'> al-Shafi'i> Sufyan ibn 'Uyaynah> 'Amr ibn Dinar> al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali> 'Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Rafi'> 'Ali who said: “The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, sent us, al-Zubayr, al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad and me, saying: 'Proceed to the meadow of Khakh where you will find a woman on a camel-borne sedan chair who has a letter'. And so we set off riding our horses and proceeded until we found a woman on a camel-borne sedan chair. We said to her: 'Take the letter out'. She said: 'I do not have any letter!' We said to her: 'You will either give us the letter or we will strip you naked'. When she heard this, she got the letter from her braids. We took it to the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace. The letter read: 'From Hatib ibn Abi Balta'ah to some people of the idolaters of Mecca', and informed them about some of what the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, intended to do. The Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, asked Hatib: 'What is this, O Hatib?' Hatib answered: 'Do not be hasty [in judging me], I am a man who is just annexed to the Quraysh, for I am not a Qurashite. All the Emigrants you have with you have relatives who will protect their own relatives. I have no relatives in Mecca, and since I lacked relatives I wanted to get some assistance from them. By Allah, I did not do it because I doubt my religion nor because I have accepted disbelief after choosing Islam'. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, said: 'He has said the truth!' But 'Umar exclaimed: 'Let me strike the neck of this hypocrite!' The Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, said: 'He has taken part in the Battle of Badr; and you do not know, perhaps Allah has looked at those who took part in the Battle of Badr and said: 'Do as you please for I have forgiven you'. Then this verse was revealed (O ye who believe! Choose not My enemy and your enemy for allies…)”. This was narrated by Bukhari from al-Humaydi and by Muslim from Abu Bakr ibn Shaybah and another group, all of whom related it from Sufyan.
Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi , trans. Mokrane Guezzou