Amatulla’s comment:

This verse lays down the basis of freedom of religion, peaceful co-existence, and pluralism. Even though it is addressed to the people who rejected the Prophet [pbuh] and his Message, who are told that they are free to practice their moral law or Din -- if these are wrong then they alone are responsible before God --that they can practice without suffering negative consequences from the believers or from the society. That is religious freedom that the Quran indicates here through this articulation. If coercion or compulsion or manipulation was allowed in converting others in accepting Islam, the Quran would have indicated as such. To the contrary, the Book later when the Muslims had the upper hand in Medina and could establish a community demonstrated tolerance and coexistence with those who outright rejected the legitimacy of the Prophet and the Quran, clearly laid down: “No compulsion in Islam” [2:256]. On the other hand, the rejecters have no right to impose their faith on the believers. This indeed is universal.

By declaring on the same breadth that the believers and rejecters [kafirs] have the same right to practice their own respective faith, right or wrong, there is the right of anyone to practice his/her own religion or Din. Because the verse is abstained mentioning any hatred, anger, or any negative action against the rejecters. It implies the freedom of religion even if that is absolutely wrong and unacceptable for the followers of the Prophet.


Sura 109, al-Kafirun, Mecca

The Quranic text and Ali’s version

لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ (٦)

109:6. To you be your Way, and to me mine

Transliteration Lakum dinukum wa liya din



Other versions

Asad “Unto you, your moral law, and unto me, mine!”


Pickthall Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.



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Ali’s comment:

6291. 'I, having been given the Truth, cannot come to your false ways: you, having your vested interests, will not give them up. For your ways the responsibility is yours: I have shown you the Truth. For my ways the responsibility is mine: you have no right to ask me to abandon the Truth. Your persecutions will be vain: the Truth must prevail in the end'.

This was the attitude of Faith then: but it is true for all time. Hold fast to Truth, "in scorn of consequence".


Asad’s comment:


3: Lit., “unto me, my moral law”. The primary significance of din is “obedience”; in particular obedience to a law or to what is conceived as a system of established – and therefore binding –usages, i.e., something endowed with moral authority: hence “religion”, “faith”’ or “religious law” in the widest sense of these terms (cf. first half of note 249 on 2:256); or simply “moral law”, as in the above instance as well as in 42:21, 95:7, or 107:1