al-Māʾida 5:2

Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū lā tuḥillū shaʿāʾira'llāhi wa la'sh-shahra'l-ḥarāma wa la'l-hadya wa la'l-qalāʾida wa lā āmmīna'l-bayta'l-ḥarāma yabtaghūna faḍlan min rabbihim wa riḍwānā · Wa idhā ḥalaltum fa'ṣṭādū · Wa lā yajrimannakum shanaʾānu qawmin an ṣaddūkum ʿani'l-Masjidi'l-Ḥarāmi an taʿtadū · Wa taʿāwanū ʿala'l-birri wa't-taqwā wa lā taʿāwanū ʿala'l-ithmi wa'l-ʿudwān · Wa'ttaqu'llāh · Inna'llāha shadīdu'l-ʿiqāb

"O you who believe! Do not profane the signs of God, nor the sacred month, nor the offering, nor the garlanded offerings, nor those making for the Sacred House, seeking bounty and good pleasure from their Lord. When you leave the state of consecration you may hunt. And let the hatred of a people, because they barred you from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, never drive you into transgression. Help one another to goodness and mindfulness of God; do not help one another to sin and enmity. Be mindful of God; God is severe in punishment."

Root ش-ع-ر: to become aware of something by fine degrees, to sense. Shiʿr (poetry) — the speech that says what is finely sensed; shāʿir — the one who senses. Shaʿr (hair) — from its fineness. Shuʿūr — awareness.

شَعِيرَة / شَعَائِر — this branch of the root gives "sign, mark, token": an indication that makes one notice that something is there. The places and acts belonging to the pilgrimage are named in the Qurʾān with this word — of Ṣafā and Marwa it says min shaʿāʾiri'llāh (al-Baqara 2/158), and of the offerings likewise (al-Ḥajj 22/36).

That is, "shaʿāʾir" does not mean "sacred objects"; they are marks that remind, that make one notice. The word looks not at the object itself but at the function of pointing.

لَا تُحِلُّوا۟ — Form IV of the root ح-ل-ل: "do not hold lawful", that is, do not lift their inviolability. The root was treated in al-Baqara at 2/168: lawful — that whose knot has been untied; forbidden — that which has been tied, made inviolable. I rely on that treatment.

هَدْى — root ه-د-ي. The same root gives the word for guidance; here it means an offering driven to the Sanctuary. The link is plain: hady is what is led there. A gift (hadiyya) is from the same root — a thing led towards someone.

قَلَٰٓئِد — the plural of qilāda (necklace); root ق-ل-د: to wind about the neck, to turn. A mark showing that it was going to the Sanctuary used to be hung on the necks of the sacrificial animals. The Turkish words "kalade", "taklit" (following someone as though winding his trace about one's neck) and "mukallit" are from the same root.

Setting these two words side by side shows an order: the animal itself (hady) and the mark upon the animal (qalāʾid) are named separately. The mark itself is taken into the scope of inviolability.

The list begins with material objects, then moves to a unit of time (ash-shahru'l-ḥarām), and finally arrives at people: āmmīna'l-bayta'l-ḥarām — "those making for the Sacred House".

آمِّين — root أ-م-م: to turn towards a direction, to intend. From the same root imām (the one in front, the one turned towards), umma (a community turned in the same direction), umm (mother — the one returned to).

And the verse also writes down the intention of those people: yabtaghūna faḍlan min rabbihim wa riḍwānā. This qualification matters: inviolability is tied not to a person's membership but to what he is turned towards.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the order of the list: the list rises from object to time, from time to person. What is placed last is the weightiest.

This is one of the sentences of this sūra most worth repeating, and six verses later it will come again, slightly altered (5/8).

شَنَـَٔان — root ش-ن-أ. The root was treated in al-Kawthar, and what was recorded there was this:

Shanaʾān: rancour, loathing, hatred, having no liking for someone. Shāniʾ — the active participle: one who harbours rancour. The word does not mean merely "enemy"; there is an emotional charge inside it. Enmity states a position; shanaʾān is an inward state.

I rely on that treatment and add what belongs here. The observation recorded in the section on al-Kawthar was this: the Qurʾān uses the same root in one place to describe the rancour felt towards us, and in another place to forbid the rancour felt by us. This is the place of that second use.

The pattern of the word should be recorded as well. Shanaʾān is a verbal noun on the pattern فَعَلَان, and in Arabic this pattern conveys movement and seething: ghalayān (boiling), dawarān (turning), ḥayarān (wandering in bewilderment). That is, the word does not describe a settled feeling but a state that stirs inside a person and pushes him. It is also transmitted that in one reading the word is read shanʾān (with a vowelless middle); I name no authority, because I cannot give one with certainty. On that reading the verbal noun leaves the pattern of movement and the sense is fixed as "rancour".

لَا يَجْرِمَنَّكُمْ — root ج-ر-م. The root is analysed here for the first time in this collection.

The concrete sense of the root is to cut, to pluck off — in particular to gather fruit from a tree. Jarama'n-nakhla: he gathered the dates. Jarīm — that which has been cut, plucked off.

Two branches come out of this:

The Turkish words "cürüm", "cerime", "mücrim" come from this root.

There is a classical disagreement about the sense of the verb here, and it is not to be concealed:

I do not impose a preference. What the three share is this: rancour is spoken of as though it were an agent. The subject of the sentence is not the person but rancour itself. That is, if a person does not govern his rancour, his rancour governs him.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the case structure of the sentence: shanaʾānu qawmin is the subject, kum is the object. The person here is the object.

The verse writes down the cause of the rancour as well: "because they barred you from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām."

This is an unusual thing to record. In laying down a prohibition, it is granted that the feeling the prohibition is set against has a justified cause. The verse does not say "harbour no rancour without cause"; it counts the cause, and holds the limit even so.

A difference in the reading of the word is transmitted: an ṣaddūkum (with fatḥa — "because they barred you", looking to the past) and in ṣaddūkum (with kasra — "if they bar you", stating a condition). I record it because the two readings change the sense; I name no authority.

The difference in sense is this: on the first, the prohibition looks to a past; on the second, to a future. And when the two are joined the rule that emerges is the same: neither what has happened nor what may happen can be a ground for breaking justice.

The root ع-د-و was treated in al-Mumtaḥana and al-Kahf: to go past something, to pass over it. ʿAduww (enemy) — the one who crosses the limit. Iʿtidāʾ (Form VIII) — going beyond the bound.

And the difference between the root ع-د-و here and the root ع-د-ل at 5/8 will be seen when the verses are compared.

The root ع-و-ن was treated in al-Anbiyāʾ in the context of mustaʿān and in al-Fātiḥa in the context of nastaʿīn: ʿawn — help. I rely on that treatment.

What belongs here is the pattern: تَعَاوُن, Form VI (تَفَاعُل).

In Arabic Form VI conveys reciprocity — an act two or more parties do to one another: taqātala (they fought one another), takātaba (they corresponded), taʿāhada (they gave one another their word), tabādala (they exchanged).

That is, the command is not "help" but "help one another". The pattern itself commands not a one-way benevolence but a reciprocal order.

And the same pattern is used on the negative side too: wa lā taʿāwanū ʿala'l-ithmi wa'l-ʿudwān. This makes a subtlety of the pattern visible:

The same verb, the same pattern, two opposite subjects. And what is being said is this: mutual help is a neutral instrument; its worth is settled by its subject. Evil, exactly like good, grows by being organised.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the twofold use of the same verb: the verse does not say "do not do evil" — it says that elsewhere already. What it says here is something else: do not take part in evil, do not build its infrastructure. The distance between the one who does the deed and the one who makes the deed possible is removed.

بِرّ — root ب-ر-ر: breadth, openness. Barr — dry land, open country (the opposite of the sea). Birr — goodness done broadly. The word was treated in detail in al-Baqara at 2/177; I rely on that treatment.

إِثْم — root أ-ث-م: to leave behind, to lag. Ithm — what holds a person back from good. I note that the word will occur again in this sūra: 5/3 (ghayra mutajānifin li-ithm), 5/62-63, 5/90-91.