﴿ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ زَحْفًۭا فَلَا تُوَلُّوهُمُ ٱلْأَدْبَارَ ﴾

“O YOU who have attained to faith! When you meet in battle those who are bent on denying the truth, advancing in great force, do not turn your backs on them:”

When the clash between believers and those who deny the truth reaches the battlefield, it is a moment of reckoning for both the parties. If at that critical moment a believing individual or group, turns tail and flees from the battlefield, it amounts to committing the worst kind of crime. Such people consider it more important to save themselves rather than to defend the Truth. They do this when what is at stake is the life of that Truth which they have admitted as the greatest Truth and which they have embraced in all good faith. On such critical occasions, even a minor defection can cause a major debacle. One person’s or one group’s flight from the battlefield lowers the morale of the whole army. One person’s running away can finally turn into a mass stampede. However, the exception to this is when a soldier or an army unit retreats for some strategic purpose, perhaps to leave one front and join another. Retreat is undoubtedly an unpardonable crime, but when carried out on strategic grounds, it is legitimate. The aforesaid commandment originally relates to battle. However, other similar cases may also come within its purview. For example, a missionary may call people to engage in the peaceful and constructive propagation of Islam, but after some time, when he sees that his call is not very popular, he may lose patience and, abandoning the constructive approach, may rush towards that type of Islam through which fame and status among the general public can very soon become a reality. Running away from the battlefield occurs consciously and with intention. But ‘running away’ from the struggle going on outside the battlefield often takes place at the unconscious level. Man happens to be result-loving by nature. He likes to be admired for his work. He wants his work to be accepted and recognised. Such a temperament gradually removes him from the tasks from which an immediate result does not seem to follow. Barely conscious of the factors working within him, he is attracted towards such things as apparently give him the hope of immediate honour and success. Every deviation of this type is an example of what has been described in the above-mentioned verse as ‘running away from the battlefield.’