يا أيها الذين آمنوا لا تقربوا الصلاة وأنتم سكارى حتى تعلموا ما تقولون ولا جنبا إلا عابري سبيل حتى تغتسلوا … فتيمموا صعيدا طيبا فامسحوا بوجوهكم وأيديكم إن الله كان عفوا غفورا
Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū lā taqrabu'ṣ-ṣalāta wa antum sukārā ḥattā taʿlamū mā taqūlūn … fa-tayammamū ṣaʿīdan ṭayyiban fa'msaḥū bi-wujūhikum wa aydīkum, inna'llāha kāna ʿAfuwwan Ghafūrā
"O you who believe! Do not draw near to prayer while you are intoxicated, until you know what you are saying… If you find no water, turn to clean earth and wipe your faces and your hands with it. God is ever pardoning, forgiving."
A wide discussion in classical jurisprudence arose from this verse: ablution, the full washing, dry ablution and their conditions. That discussion is not entered into in this section.
The reason is the method's rule against issuing legal rulings. There is also a well-known classical disagreement over the scope of the expression aw lāmastumu'l-nisāʾ in the verse; the details and consequences of that disagreement are not the subject of this text. What is treated here is the linguistic side of the verse.
The most striking side of the verse is that it ties the prohibition not to a condition but to a state of knowing.
| It could have been | It is |
|---|---|
| Do not draw near to prayer while intoxicated | Do not draw near to prayer while intoxicated, until you know what you are saying |
The verse, that is, gives its own ground within itself: that what is said in prayer be said knowingly.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the particle ḥattā: the particle states a limit, and the limit is the understanding of the words.
Ṣaʿīd — root ص-ع-د: to rise, to go up. From the same root come ṣuʿūd (ascent) and ṣaʿūd (a hard climb). The lexicographers explain ṣaʿīd as "the top of the earth, the soil at the surface" — that is, the rising, outermost face of the ground.
Ṭayyib — root ط-ي-ب: pleasant, clean, good. The word occurred in the second verse of this sūra as well: lā tatabaddalu'l-khabītha bi'l-ṭayyib ("do not exchange the good for the foul"). The same root, once for the quality of property and once for the quality of earth.
The root ع-ف-و: to wipe away, to erase the trace of; and to pardon. The root غ-ف-ر: to cover (mighfar — the helmet that covers the head).
That this verse-ending stands in this verse must be recorded: the verse gives a ruling of relief and closes with two attributes of pardon. This continues the line of yurīdu'llāhu an yukhaffifa ʿankum in the twenty-eighth verse.