A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 10/66
[Sidenote: 66. Mohammad never blamed in the Koran for relieving prisoners.]
There are some fictitious traditions on the subject that Mohammad was reprimanded in the Koran (Sura, viii, 68, 69) for releasing the prisoners of Badr, meaning that he ought to have executed them. The verse is translated thus:—
"It is not for a Prophet to take prisoners until (hatta) he hath slaughtered in the land. Ye wish to have the goods of this world, but God wishes for the next, for God is Mighty, Wise! Were it not for a book from God that had gone before, there would have touched you, for which ye took, a mighty punishment."
The verse 68, if it is rightly translated, will mean that prisoners should not be executed. The word '"hatta"' means 'until,' and is also used as a causative word. I prefer the latter, and translate—
"It is not for any Prophet that prisoners may be brought to him in order that he may make slaughter in the land," which means, that it is not proper for a Prophet to take prisoners of war in order to slaughter them. This meaning is in consonance with the other passage in the Koran (xlvii, 4), which restricts the treatment of the prisoners of war to either free dismissal or ransom.
In the first place, the verse rather reprimanded those who wished to kill the prisoners; and in the second, those who desired to exact ransom for their liberty. They ought to have set them at liberty without any pecuniary advantage, if they knew any good in their deserving free liberty.