ٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ عَن صَلَاتِهِمْ سَاهُونَ
This verse is much worked over in the classical commentaries, and the reason is a single letter: عَن (ʿan).
Had the verse said "fī ṣalātihim sāhūn" — "those who go astray in their prayer" — the meaning would have been entirely different. Let us compare them thus:
| Structure | Its meaning | Whom it takes in |
|---|---|---|
| فِي صَلَاتِهِمْ (fī — within) | Distraction inside the prayer: the mind slipping, forgetting how many cycles one has prayed, thinking of something else instead of the supplication. | Almost everyone. A consequence of being human. |
| عَنْ صَلَاتِهِمْ (ʿan — away from) | Moving away from the prayer itself: not caring about it, letting its time run out, being indifferent to whether one prays or not. | Those who have a prayer but have no prayer. |
First, the letter's own meaning. In Arabic the basic function of the letter ʿan is mujāwaza: parting from a thing, moving away from it, leaving it behind. Fī, on the other hand, conveys being inside. The two point in opposite directions. The verse positions the heedlessness not inside the prayer but towards the prayer. That is, the heedlessness is not distraction within a prayer that is performed; it is the attitude taken towards the thing called prayer.
Second, the rulings of the religion itself. To go astray within the prayer is not an offence in Islam; on the contrary, a remedy has been laid down for it: the prostration of forgetfulness. A thing cannot both be tied to a rule for its forgiveness and be threatened with "wayl". That would be the text contradicting itself.
This distinction is widely worked over in the exegetical tradition and is a point the lexicographers dwell on. I do not ascribe any particular sentence to any exegete; but the view itself is commonly accepted in the classical sources.
The cleanest proof of this reading is in the Qurʾān itself. In Sūrat al-Maʿārij all but the identical grammatical structure is used, but the letter changes and it turns into praise:
| al-Māʿūn 107/5 | al-Maʿārij 70/23 | |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern | alladhīna hum | alladhīna hum |
| Letter | عَن (moving away) | عَلَىٰ (standing upon) |
| Construction | ṣalātihim | ṣalātihim |
| Quality | sāhūn (heedless) | dāʾimūn (constant) |
The two verses use the same pattern and the only difference is in the letter. One stands upon the prayer (ʿalā — on top of it, fixed, without parting from it), the other moves away from the prayer (ʿan). This contrast within the Qurʾān itself is the strongest indication that ʿan cannot here mean "within".
Moreover, in the same sūra (al-Maʿārij 70/24-25) "in their wealth there is a determined right" comes immediately afterwards. That is, those praised in al-Maʿārij are exactly the contrary of those blamed in al-Māʿūn: the one who guards his prayer and acknowledges the right of the needy in his wealth. The two sūras can be read as the negative of one another.
هُمْ (hum) — Here there is a pronoun written separately which is not grammatically required. Alladhīna ʿan ṣalātihim sāhūn could have been said; the meaning would not have been damaged. The addition of hum is for specification and emphasis: "those, exactly those". The pronoun nails the description to the person.
سَاهُونَ (sāhūn) — Root س ه و. Its meaning: distraction, the slipping of attention elsewhere, the mind's not being there.
- Nisyān: the information leaves the mind entirely. If the person wants to remember he cannot.
- Sahw: the information is in the mind, but attention has slipped away from it. Once reminded, the person remembers at once.
This distinction fixes where the accusation falls. The person the sūra describes does not fail to know the prayer. He knows. He knows that the prayer exists, that its time has come, what it is. He simply does not care. Not a lack of knowledge but a lack of interest. This is why there is no ground for excuse.
A nominal sentence and an active participle. Sāhūn is not a verb but an active participle; and the sentence is a nominal sentence. In Arabic this conveys fixity and continuity. That is, not "they are sometimes heedless" but "being heedless is their state". Not a passing condition but a settled attribute.
In the classical commentaries the states falling within the scope of this verse are enumerated thus: those who let the prayer's time run out, those indifferent to whether they pray or not, those who while praying have no prayer in their mind at all, those who pray when they see people and leave it off when they are alone (this last item is tied to the next verse).
A balance has to be struck here, and the classical exegetes have struck it scrupulously: the verse does not mean the ordinary believer whose mind wanders in his prayer. Wandering of mind belongs to the human constitution and its remedy lies within the service itself. The verse's target is the one who has turned the prayer into an operation that touches no part of his life.
Indeed the Qurʾān says what the prayer ought to do: "The prayer surely restrains from indecency and from wrong." (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/45). This verse is a measure as much as it is a promise: a prayer that does not restrain has fallen outside the description. The fifth verse of al-Māʿūn is precisely the negative face of this measure.