The Five Pillars

And seek aid in steadfast patience and prayer: and this, indeed, is a hard thing for all but the humble in spirit,

and when We cleft the sea before you, and thus saved you and caused Pharaoh's people to drown before your very eyes;

AND LO! We made the Temple a goal to which people might repair again and again, and a sanctuary:102 take then, the place whereon Abraham once stood as your place of prayer." And thus did We command Abraham and Ishmael: "Purify My Temple for those who will walk around it, and those who will abide near it in meditation, and those who will bow down and prostrate themselves [in prayer]."

[Hence,] behold, As-Safa and Al-Marwah are among the symbols set up by God; and thus, no wrong does he who, having come to the Temple on pilgrimage or on a pious visit, strides to and fro between these two:127 for, if one does more good than he is bound to do - behold, God is responsive to gratitude, all-knowing.

Verily, in the creation of the heavens and of the earth, and the succession of night and day: and in the ships that speed through the sea with what is useful to man: and in the waters which God sends down from the sky, giving life thereby to the earth after it had been lifeless, and causing all manner of living creatures to multiply thereon: and in the change of the winds, and the clouds that run their appointed courses between sky and earth: [in all this] there are messages indeed for people who use their reason.

O YOU who have attained to faith! Fasting is ordained for you as it was ordained for those before you, so that you might remain conscious of God:

It was the month of Ramadan in which the Qur'an was [first] bestowed from on high as a guidance unto man and a self-evident proof of that guidance, and as the standard by which to discern the true from the false. Hence, whoever of you lives to see this month shall fast throughout it; but he that is ill, or on a journey, [shall fast instead for the same] number of other days. God wills that you shall have ease, and does not will you to suffer hardship; but [He desires] that you complete the number [of days required], and that you extol God for His having guided you aright, and that you render your thanks [unto Him].

IT IS lawful for you to go in unto your wives during the night preceding the [day's] fast: they are as a garment for you, and you are as a garment for them. God is aware that you would have deprived yourselves of this right, and so He has turned unto you in His mercy and removed this hardship from you. Now, then, you may lie with them skin to skin, and avail yourselves of that which God has ordained for you, and eat and drink until you can discern the white streak of dawn against the blackness of night, and then resume fasting until nightfall; but do not lie with them skin to skin when you are about to abide in meditation in houses of worship. These are the bounds set by God: do not, then, offend against them - [for] it is thus that God makes clear His messages unto mankind, so that they might remain conscious of Him.

THEY WILL ASK thee about the new moons. Say: "They indicate the periods for [various doings of] mankind, including the pilgrimage." However, piety does not consist in your entering houses from the rear, [as it were,] but truly pious is he who is conscious of God. Hence, enter houses through their doors, and remain conscious of God, so that you might attain to a happy state.

And slay them wherever you may come upon them, and drive them away from wherever they drove you away - for oppression is even worse than killing. And fight not against them near the Inviolable House of Worship unless they fight against you there first; but if they fight against you, slay them: such shall be the recompense of those who deny the truth.

AND PERFORM the pilgrimage and the pious visit [to Mecca] in honour of God; and if you are held back, give instead whatever offering you can easily afford. And do not shave your heads until the offering has been sacrificed; but he from among you who is ill or suffers from an ailment of the head shall redeem himself by fasting, or alms, or [any other] act of worship. And if you are hale and secure, then he who takes advantage of a pious visit before the [time of] pilgrimage shall give whatever offering he can easily afford; whereas he who cannot afford it shall fast for three days during the pilgrimage and for seven days after your return: that is, ten full [days]. All this relates to him who does not live near the Inviolable House of Worship. And remain conscious of God, and know that God is severe in retribution.

The pilgrimage shall take place in the months appointed for it. And whoever undertakes the pilgrimage in those [months] shall, while on pilgrimage, abstain from lewd speech, from all wicked conduct, and from quarrelling; and whatever good you may do, God is aware of it. And make provision for yourselves - but, verily, the best of all provisions is God-consciousness: remain, then, conscious of Me, O you who are endowed with insight!

They will ask thee about fighting in the sacred month. Say: "Fighting in it is an awesome thing; but turning men away from the path of God and denying Him, and [turning them away from] the Inviolable House of Worship and expelling its people therefrom - [all this] is yet more awesome in the sight of God, since oppression is more awesome than killing." [Your enemies] will not cease to fight against you till they have turned you away from your faith, if they can. But if any of you should turn away from his faith and die as a denier of the truth - these it is whose works will go for nought in this world and in the life to come; and these it is who are destined for the fire, therein to abide.

full of clear messages. [It is] the place whereon Abraham once stood; and whoever enters it finds inner peace. Hence, pilgrimage unto the Temple is a duty owed to God by all people who are able to undertake it. And as for those who deny the truth - verily, God does not stand in need of anything in all the worlds.

[and] who remember God when they stand, and when they sit, and when they lie down to sleep, and [thus] reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: "O our Sustainer! Thou hast not created [aught of] this without meaning and purpose. Limitless art Thou in Thy glory! Keep us safe, then, from suffering through fire!

O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not attempt to pray while you are in a state of drunkenness, [but wait] until you know what you are saying; nor yet [while you are] in a state requiring total ablution, until you have bathed - except if you are travelling [and are unable to do so]. But if you are ill, or are travelling, or have just satisfied a want of nature, or have cohabited with a woman, and can find no water - then take resort to pure dust, passing [therewith] lightly over your face and your hands. Behold, God is indeed an absolver of sins, much-forgiving.

O YOU who have attained to faith! When you are about to pray, wash your face, and your hands and arms up to the elbows, and pass your [wet] hands lightly over your head, and [wash] your feet up to the ankles. And if you are in a state requiring total ablution, purify yourselves. But if you are ill, or are travelling, or have just satisfied a want of nature, or have cohabited with a woman, and can find no water - then take resort to pure dust, passing therewith lightly over your face and your hands. God does not want to impose any hardship on you, but wants to make you pure, and to bestow upon you the full measure of His blessings, so that you might have cause to be grateful.

And for this their belief God will reward them with gardens through which running waters flow, therein to abide: for such is the requital of the doers of good;

O you who have attained to faith! Kill no game while you are in the state of pilgrimage. And whoever of you kills it intentionally, [shall make] amends in cattle equivalent to what he has killed - with two persons of probity giving their judgment thereon - to be brought as an offering to the Ka'bah; or else he may atone for his sin by feeding the needy, or by the equivalent thereof in fasting:114 [this,] in order that he taste the full gravity of his deed, [while] God shall have effaced the past. But whoever does it again, God will inflict His retribution on him: for God is almighty, an avenger of evil.

God has laid down that the Ka'bah, the Inviolable Temple, shall be a symbol for all mankind; and [so, too, is the sacred month [of pilgrimage] and the garlanded offerings [are symbols] meant to make you aware that God is aware of all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth, and that God has full knowledge of everything.

Now had We so willed, We could indeed have exalted him by means of those [messages]: but he always clung to the earth and followed but his own desires. Thus, his parable is that of an [excited] dog: if thou approach him threateningly, he will pant with his tongue lolling; and if thou leave him alone, he will pant with his tongue lolling. 142 Such is the parable of those who are bent on giving the lie to Our messages. Tell [them], then, this story, so that they might take thought. 140 Lit., "convey to them the tiding of him". 141 Lit., "he became one of those who have strayed into grievous error". In the original, this whole verse is in the past tense; but since its obvious purport is the statement of a general truth (cf. Razi, on the authority of Qatadah, 'Ikrimah and Abu Muslim) and not, as some commentators assume, a reference to a particular person, it is best rendered in the present tense. The kind of man spoken of here is one who has understood the divine message but, nevertheless, refuses to admit its truth because - as is pointed out in the next verse he "clings to the earth", i.e., is dominated by a materialistic, "earthly" outlook on life. (Cf. the allegory of "a creature out of the earth" in 27:82.) 142 Because his attitudes are influenced only by what his earth-bound desires represent to him as his immediate "advantages" or "disadvantages", the type of man alluded to in this passage is always - whatever the outward circumstances - a prey to a conflict between his reason and his base urges and, thus, to inner disquiet and imaginary fears and cannot attain to that peace of mind which a believer achieves through his faith.

Verily, the vilest of all creatures in the sight of God are those deaf, those dumb ones who do not use their reason.

But what have they [now] in their favour that God should not chastise them - seeing that they bar [the believers] from the Inviolable House of Worship, although they are not its [rightful] guardians? None but the God-conscious can be its guardians: but of this most of these [evildoers] are unaware;

Verse text unavailable

HOW COULD they who ascribe divinity to aught beside God be granted a covenant by God and His Apostle, unless it be those [of them] with whom you [O believers] have made a covenant in the vicinity of the Inviolable House of Worship? [As for the latter,] so long as they remain true to you, be true to them: for, verily, God loves those who are conscious of Him.

[Hence, O Prophet,] accept that [part] of their possessions which is offered for the sake of God, 137 so that thou mayest cleanse them thereby and cause them to grow in purity, and pray for them: behold, thy prayer will be [a source of] comfort to them - for God is all-hearing, all-knowing.

The parable of the life of this world is but that of rain which We send down from the sky, and which is absorbed by the plants of the earth 37 whereof men and animals draw nourishment, until - when the earth has assumed its artful adornment and has been embellished, and they who dwell on it believe that they have gained mastery over it - there comes down upon it Our judgment, by night or by day, and We cause it to become [like] a field mown down, as if there had been no yesterday. Thus clearly do We spell out these messages unto people who think! 34 Lit., "until, when you are in the ships...", etc. As has been pointed out by Zamakhshari, the particle "until" (hatta) which precedes this clause refers to the sudden rise of the storm described in the sequence, and not to the "going to sea in ships". It is to be noted that at this point the discourse changes abruptly from the direct address "you" to the third person plural ("they"): a construction which is evidently meant to bring out the allegorical character of the subsequent narrative and to turn it into a lesson of general validity. 35 See verse 12 (of which the above passage is a parabolic illustration) and the corresponding notes. 36 Lit., "your outrageousness (baghy) is only against your own selves". Cf. the oft-recurring Qur'anic expression, "they have sinned against themselves" (zalamu anfusahum, lit., "they have wronged themselves"), indicating the inevitability with which every evil deed damages its perpetrator spiritually. 37 Lit., "with which the plants of the earth mingle". 38 I.e., they come to believe that they have gained "mastery over nature", with no conceivable limits to what they may yet achieve. It is to be borne in mind that the term zukhruf bears almost invariably a connotation of artificiality - a connotation which in this case is communicated to the subsequent verb izzayyanat. Thus, the whole of the above parabolic sentence may be understood as alluding to the artificial, illusory "adornment" brought about by man's technological efforts, not in collaboration with nature but, rather, in hostile "confrontation" with it. 39 Lit., "as if it had not been in existence yesterday": a phrase used in classical Arabic to describe something that has entirely disappeared or perished (Taj al-'Arus).

AND [know that] God invites [man] unto the abode of peace, and guides him that wills [to be guided] onto a straight way.

And [thus it is:] had thy Sustainer so willed, all those who live on earth would surely have attained to faith, all of them:122 dost thou, then, think that thou couldst compel people to believe,