al-Ḥajj 22:30-31

Dhālika wa man yuʿaẓẓim ḥurumāti'llāhi fa-huwa khayrun lahu ʿinda rabbih · Wa uḥillat lakumu'l-anʿāmu illā mā yutlā ʿalaykum · Fa'jtanibu'r-rijsa mina'l-awthāni wa'jtanibū qawla'z-zūr · Ḥunafāʾa lillāhi ghayra mushrikīna bih · Wa man yushrik bi'llāhi fa-ka-annamā kharra mina's-samāʾi fa-takhṭafuhu'ṭ-ṭayru aw tahwī bihi'r-rīḥu fī makānin saḥīq

"So it is. Whoever honours the inviolable things of God, that is better for him with his Lord… Shun the filth of idols, and shun false speech. As ḥanīfs to God, associating nothing with Him. And whoever associates anything with God is as though he had fallen from the sky, and the birds were snatching him away, or the wind were sweeping him off to a far place."

The core sense of the root: to make inviolable, to forbid, to set apart. Ḥarām, ḥaram, iḥrām, maḥram, ḥurma are of the same root. The root occurred in many contexts in al-Baqara.

What distinguishes the root must be recorded: the same word means both "forbidden" and "worthy of reverence". The two do not contradict: to make a thing inviolable is both to protect it and to fence it. Ḥaram — a place that may not be entered and that is protected.

حُرُمَات is plural and is left indefinite: which inviolable things they are is not enumerated.

The construct is striking and the lexicographers dwell on it: ar-rijsa mina'l-awthān.

In Arabic the particle min is here reckoned explicative (bayāniyya): that is, not "the filth that comes from idols" but "the filth that is the idols" — the min explains what the rijs is.

I record this as a grammatical observation, and the lexicographers explain the usage in this way. The difference of sense is this: idols are counted not as the source of the filth but as the filth itself.

وَٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ قَوْلَ ٱلزُّورِ — "shun false speech."

The root ز-و-ر: crookedness, swerving to one side. Zāra — he visited (he turned towards someone); azwar — one whose chest is crooked. From this comes the sense of "speech that has swerved from the truth".

That the two commands are placed side by side is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: one is an object (idols), the other a word. And both are forbidden with the same verb (ijtanibū). The verse thus counts a stone object and a sentence in the same category.

ٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ — root ج-ن-ب: side, flank. In Form VIII: "not to take a thing to one's side, to pass it by". The command is therefore not "destroy them" but "do not go near them".

And the root's other occurrence in this sūra must be recorded: at 22/36, fa-idhā wajabat junūbuhā — the flanks of the sacrificial animal. The same root, one a command and one a scene.

The lexicographers dwell on the concrete sense of the root: the inward turning of the foot (ḥanaf — a kind of crookedness of the foot). From this comes the sense of "to incline in one direction".

And the Qurʾānic usage of the word turns that inclination in a positive direction: a ḥanīf is one who turns his face from everything crooked and faces a single direction.

The lexicographers record one further point, and it is curious: the same root also occurs in some usages with exactly the opposite sense (ḥanīf — one who swerves from religion). That a root should carry opposite senses (aḍdād) is a known phenomenon in Arabic. I give this as a note on the language.

This is the most detailed simile in the sūra, and it is divided into four verbs:

The structure of the simile must be recorded, and I give this as my own reading: the falling man never reaches the ground.

Two possibilities are given (fa-takhṭafuhu or aw tahwī bihi), and neither of them allows the fall to be completed. Either he is snatched in the air, or he is swept away. The scene is therefore not a fall but a being held in suspension.

خَرَّ — root خ-ر-ر: to fall from a height; and, in falling, to make a sound (ḥarīr — the murmur of water). The word is used in the Qurʾān of prostration as well (kharrū sujjadā).

This is an overlap worth recording: the same verb describes both the falling to the ground in prostration and the fall in this verse. The difference lies in whether the fall is controlled. Between the list of prostration in the eighteenth verse and this verse stand the two faces of one root.

سَحِيق — root س-ح-ق: to crush, to grind fine. Saḥq — to pound in a mortar. From this comes the sense of "very far"; the lexicographers make the link thus: so far that whoever reaches it counts as crushed.

تَخْطَفُ — root خ-ط-ف: to seize swiftly. The same root occurred at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/67 (wa yutakhaṭṭafu'n-nāsu min ḥawlihim — "while people are snatched away all around them"). And there too the subject was the safety of the Sanctuary. I rely on that treatment.

The comparison of the two verses is worth recording:

In al-ʿAnkabūt safety was bound to a place; here insecurity is bound to there being nothing to hold on to.