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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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Discussion of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “A group you kill and a group you take captive”

Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Here, the object is fronted in His saying
A group you kill فَرِيقًا تَقْتُلُونَ
and the object is placed after the verb in His saying:
And a group you take captive وَتَأْسِرُونَ فَرِيقًا
Is the benefit of this merely to observe the rhyming endings, making the benefit verbal, or is there a semantic benefit?
The student: Both matters.
The Shaykh : Yes, indeed, both matters.
The student: Is there a difference between the two groups; are they not the same?

The Shaykh : How is that?
The student: Is there a difference between the two groups, where the last group is women and the first is only men?

The Shaykh : No.
The student: Because the first are the men... and the second are those who do not fight...?
The student: ...

The Shaykh : Yes, that is the apparent meaning, because the first ruling is more severe and emphatic, so its object was fronted: “A group you kill.” The second is less so, because a captive might be granted the favor of being released. So He said:
And a group you take captive وَتَأْسِرُونَ فَرِيقًا
This is while observing the wording, which is observing the rhyming endings of the verses. Therefore, Allah the Exalted said in Surat al-Baqarah:
a party [of messengers] they denied, and another party they killed. فَرِيقًا كَذَّبُوا وَفَرِيقًا يَقْتُلُونَ
[Al-Ma'idah: 70] or
And a party [of messengers] you denied and another party you killed. ففريقا كذبتم وفريقاً تقتلون
[Al-Baqarah 2:87]
Since the denial of the messengers is severe, the object was fronted in it, just as the object was fronted in their killing. This is the story of the Confederates, which ended with His saying:
Source alathar.net

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

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