وَإِذْ بَوَّأْنَا لِإِبْرَٰهِيمَ مَكَانَ ٱلْبَيْتِ أَن لَّا تُشْرِكْ بِى شَيْـًٔا وَطَهِّرْ بَيْتِىَ لِلطَّآئِفِينَ وَٱلْقَآئِمِينَ وَٱلرُّكَّعِ ٱلسُّجُودِ · وَأَذِّن فِى ٱلنَّاسِ بِٱلْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَىٰ كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ
Wa idh bawwaʾnā li-Ibrāhīma makāna'l-bayti an lā tushrik bī shayʾan wa ṭahhir baytiya li'ṭ-ṭāʾifīna wa'l-qāʾimīna wa'r-rukkaʿi's-sujūd · Wa adhdhin fi'n-nāsi bi'l-ḥajji yaʾtūka rijālan wa ʿalā kulli ḍāmirin yaʾtīna min kulli fajjin ʿamīq
"And when We made ready for Abraham the place of the House: 'Associate nothing with Me; and purify My House for those who circle it, those who stand, those who bow and prostrate. And proclaim the pilgrimage among the people: they will come to you on foot and on every lean mount, coming from every deep ravine.'"
The concrete sense of the root: to level a place and make it fit to settle in; to prepare a place of lodging. Mabāʾa — a halting place, a place returned to. Bawwaʾa — he settled, he made a place ready.
The choice of word is worth recording, and I give it as an observation: the verse does not say "We showed Abraham the House" or "We had him build it". It says "We made its place ready" — makāna'l-bayt.
What the verse describes is therefore not the building itself but the place of the building. The place has priority.
The same root occurred at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/58 (la-nubawwiʾannahum mina'l-jannati ghurafā — "We shall settle them in chambers in the Garden"). The same verb; one a place in this world, the other in the next.
The command is ṭahhir (keep it pure), and those for whom it is given are enumerated. There are four items:
| Order | Word | Posture |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Al-ṭāʾifīn | Those who circle — in motion |
| 2 | Al-qāʾimīn | Those who stand |
| 3 | Al-rukkaʿ | Those who bow — half bent |
| 4 | Al-sujūd | Those who prostrate — fallen to the ground |
The order itself carries information, and I record this as an observation about word order: the list descends from the most mobile to the most still, and from the most upright to the most prone. Circling → standing → bending → falling.
And the fourth item connects with the eighteenth verse of this sūra: there all beings were prostrating. Here prostration is enumerated as the last form the human body takes around a place.
ٱلطَّآئِفِين — root ط-و-ف: to go round a thing. Ṭāʾifa (a group, a section), ṭawāf, ṭūfān (water that encompasses everything) are of the same root.
The picture in the root must be recorded: to circle is to move while remaining bound to a centre. Neither drawing away nor stopping; the centre fixed, the motion continual.
The root أ-ذ-ن: the ear (udhun). Two branches issue from it: to give leave (to lend an ear and accept) and to proclaim (to bring to the ears). Adhān is of the same root.
I record this as a grammatical observation: the particle fī conveys that the call is to be made in the midst of the people, from among them. It is not a summons from outside.
The other branch of the root must be recorded: from the same root comes حُجَّة (ḥujja — proof). The lexicographers explain the connection thus: a ḥujja is what directs the hearer to a definite conclusion. The ḥajj and the ḥujja therefore do the same thing: they direct towards a goal.
I give this connection as an observation about the language; the two branches of the root are recorded in the dictionaries in this way.
| Order | Word | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | رِجَالًا | On foot — from rijl (foot); one who comes walking |
| 2 | عَلَىٰ كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ | On a mount — but what kind of mount? |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order: the one on foot is named first. The man without means has been counted before the man with means.
ضَامِر — root ض-م-ر: to grow thin, to grow lean, to waste in flesh. Ḍamīr (conscience) is reckoned to this root too: what is hidden within, what grows fine. Iḍmār — to conceal.
The word is an adjective, and it reports not the kind of the mount but its condition: "grown lean, made thin".
I record this as an observation, and its ground is the meaning of the word: the verse does not say "on a camel". It says a mount whose flesh has wasted from the length of the road. The attribute thus writes the length of the journey onto the body of the animal. The distance is conveyed not by a separate sentence but by the state of the beast.
The construct means, exactly, "from every deep pass". And the adjective ʿamīq is used in Arabic for distance as well: so far off that its bottom cannot be seen.
Three separate words thus say the same thing: ḍāmir (the road has worn the mount down), fajj (a pass), ʿamīq (deep/far). The distance is conveyed three times, by three separate routes.
The command is given to a single person: adhdhin — "you, proclaim". And the outcome is plural: yaʾtūka — "they will come to you".
I record this as an observation about word order: a single call, a plural answer. And the verb of the answer is yaʾtūka — imperfect, that is, ongoing. It conveys not a single coming but a repeated movement.