203. Whether war is obligatory even if the forces are very less?

203. Whether war is obligatory even if the forces are very less?

This verse (9:31) states that war is obligatory even if the forces are very less.

In the Quranic verse 8:66 it has been said that war would be obligatory only if the forces of Muslims were equal to fifty percent of the enemy forces. If the forces were lesser than fifty percent of the enemy forces then, war would not be obligatory.

It should not be assumed that these two verses were a contradiction. Since, in the Quranic verse 8:66, only after uttering the phrase “Now Allah has made it easy for you”, Allah has said that forces of Muslim should be equal to fifty percent of the enemy forces. Hence, we can understand from this that the previous situation has been changed.

Hence it was previous rule that war would be obligatory however smaller the forces of Muslims might be, even though it has been said in this verse 9:41 that war would be obligatory even if the forces of Muslims were lesser, the extent of such shortage was not. We can assume that the Quranic verse 8:66 has the extent of such shortage. (i.e., fifty percent).

For more details refer the notes 53, 76, 197, 198 and 359).