2/158 — The lifting of a scruple
"Al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa are among God's signs. Whoever makes the pilgrimage to the House or performs the ʿumra, there is no fault in his going round the two."
The expression is strange: one does not expect "there is no fault" to be said of an act of worship. A command or an encouragement would be expected.
The reason transmitted is this: because in the age of ignorance there were idols on these two hills, the Muslims had been reluctant to go back and forth between them. The scruple, that is, arose out of piety — not wanting to stand in a place tainted by association of partners with God.
The verse's answer does not condemn the scruple; it lifts it. And in doing so it sets a measure: that a place or a practice has been misused in the past does not permanently defile it. What was defiled was the thing done in that place; not the place.
This is among the rare verses showing that excessive scrupulousness can also be a deviation. At verse 143 of the sūra it had said "a middle community" — to stand clear of two extremes. If one of the extremes is laxity, the other is needless rigidity.