Sūrah 109 · Āyāt 6–6

Surah al-Kāfirūn 109:6 — "To you your religion, and to me my religion"

The closing verse seals the renunciation. Its brevity has provoked two debates among the sources present here: what dīn means in it, and whether it concedes the disbelievers a "right" to their unbelief.

"Religion" or "recompense"? Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) lists three readings: (1) an elided annexation — "to you the recompense of your religion and to me the recompense of mine"; (2) "to you your disbelief, and to me the religion of monotheism and sincere devotion"; and (3) dīn taken outright as "recompense." Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān) states the recompense reading plainly: "sufficient for you is the recompense of their religion as punishment, as sufficient is the recompense of his religion as bliss and reward." Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) reports the same two recompense-based options but judges both "far from the [natural] understanding," preferring the plain sense: the lām is one of ikhtiṣāṣ (exclusive belonging) — your religion is exclusively yours and does not pass to me, and mine is exclusively mine and does not pass to you.

Not a licence for idolatry. All three prose sources insist the verse is no truce with unbelief. Ṭabarsī stresses that although it "outwardly appears to be a permitting, it is in fact a threat, a warning, and an emphatic rebuke," like "Do what you will" (Fuṣṣilat 40). Ṭūsī reads it as "reinforcing the rebuke": casting the words as a concession shows that "the harm befalls none but the one to whom it is conceded — as though it were said: destroy yourself, if that is good for you." Al-Mīzān is the most explicit, rejecting outright "any imagining that the verse indicates the permissibility of each one's taking up whatever religion he pleases," or that the Prophet would not thereafter contend with their religion — "for the true call which the Qur'an contains repels that from the very foundation." (This bears directly on the classical question of whether v.6 was abrogated by the verses of jihād: al-Mīzān's answer is that no abrogation is needed, because the verse neither permits continued unbelief nor conflicts with those ordinances.) The Enlightening Commentary reaches the same verdict through its own question — "Is 'To you be your religion' a licence for idolatry?" — and answers that the reading of "general peace" is "very weak and baseless," the tone being "scorn and warning… you will see its fatal consequence soon," comparing it to Qaṣaṣ 28:55.

A sign of prophethood, and a discipline of dissociation. Ṭabarsī observes that the surah is itself a miracle: it foretold that these particular men would never believe — knowledge available only by revelation — "and what He foretold came to pass exactly." From this he draws the surah's practical lesson: the blameworthiness of mudāhana (compromise) in religion and the duty of barāʾa, of opposing and disavowing the people of falsehood. The recitation tradition turns the verse inward: Ṭabarsī transmits from Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) that on reaching "to you your religion and to me my religion," the worshipper should affirm, "My Lord is God and my religion is Islam"; and al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī record that the Imam, on finishing the surah, would say "My religion is Islam" three times — a living gloss on wa liya dīn. The Enlightening Commentary closes on the same note: monotheism and polytheism are "two distinct, opposite ways," and the believer's duty, like the Prophet's, is not silent coexistence but open detachment from every form of shirk.