to give one-fifth of the booty to Muhammad. Mention in the Quran Muhammad initially disapproved of that act and suspended any action as regards the camels and the two captives on account of the prohibited months. The Arab pagans exploited this opportunity to accuse the Muslims of violating what is divinely inviolable (fighting in the months considered sacred to the Arab pagans). This idle talk brought about a painful headache for Muhammad's Companions, until at last they were relieved when Muhammad revealed a verse regarding fighting in the sacred months According to Ibn Qayyim, he said "most of the scholars have explained the word Fitnah here as meaning Shirk" The Muslim Mufassir Ibn Kathir's commentary on this verse in his book Tafsir ibn Kathir is as follows: means, trying to force the Muslims to revert from their religion and re-embrace Kufr after they had believed, is worse with Allah than killing.' Allah said: In Qur'an Statistics Badawi & Haleem note that the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn () occurs in 6 different forms a total of 60 times in the Qur'an. In particular, it appears 34 times as a noun and 26 times in various verbal forms. Bakhtiar's concordance of the Qur'an confirms Badawi & Haleem's numbers, although Bakhtiar further breaks down the appearance of each verbal form by distinguishing active and passive verbs by tense as well. The following table sets out the details; note that since the root only appears as a verb in Form I forms, that is assumed. Semantics The triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (), as noted above, bears a range of significations, even in the Qur'an itself. The Qur'anic appearances of the root are explored below (in no particular order). Persecution Fitna as persecution appears in several of the verses commanding Muslims to fight the unbelievers (specifically referring to the Meccan polytheists who had persecuted Muhammad and his early followers, thus leading to the hijra). For example, in Qur'an , the command to fight is justified on the grounds that "persecution (al-fitnatu) is worse than slaying." Similarly, in Qur'an , Muslims are forbidden from fighting unbelievers around the Holy Mosque in Mecca unless the unbelievers attack first, in which case Muslims are to fight "until there is no persecution (fitnatun) and the religion is God's." The hijra is mentioned in Qur'an as having occurred because of the persecution believers had suffered in Mecca. Other examples are Qur'an ,