Surah al-A`raf (The Elevated Places) 7 : 34

Overview (Verses 31 - 34)

Forbidding What Is Lawful

A new address is now made to mankind, serving as a pause to comment on the events related earlier before resuming the main theme in the sūrah: “Children of Adam, dress well when you attend any place of worship. Eat and drink but do not be wasteful. Surely He does not love the wasteful. Say, ‘Who is there to forbid the beauty which God has produced for His servants, and the wholesome means of sustenance?’ Say, ‘They are [lawful] in the life of this world, to all who believe — to be theirs alone on the Day of Resurrection.’ Thus do We make Our revelations clear to people of knowledge. Say, ‘My Lord has only forbidden shameful deeds, be they open or secret, and all types of sin, and wrongful oppression, and that you should associate with God anything for which He has given no authority, and that you attribute to God anything of which you have no knowledge.’” (Verses 31-33)

In this address, we note the emphasis on the basic principle of faith in order to stress the falsehood of the practices of the pagan Arabs. One of the clearest examples is to link their arbitrary prohibition of good wholesome things God has provided for His servants with ascribing partners to God. This is indeed the proper description of anyone who falsely claims the authority to make such a prohibition, attributing to God things of which he has no knowledge.

God tells mankind to don their best clothes, which He has given them and taught them how to make, whenever they attend to any act of worship, including ţawāf, which means walking round the Ka`bah glorifying God, acknowledging His Lordship and asking Him to grant our wishes. Those Arabs used to do ţawāf naked, forbidding themselves the wearing of any garments when God did not forbid them that. On the contrary, He made the provision of such clothes an aspect of His grace. The proper thing to be expected is that they should obey Him and make use of what He has given them, not taking off their clothing in a grossly indecent manner: “Children of Adam, dress well when you attend any place of worship.” (Verse 31) He also tells them to enjoy the wholesome provisions He has given them, without being extravagant: “Eat and drink but do not be wasteful. Surely He does not love the wasteful.” (Verse 31)

It has been reported that the Arabs also used to forbid themselves certain types of food in a similar manner to their prohibition of certain types of clothing. All these were inventions perpetrated by the Quraysh, the ruling tribe in Makkah.

In an authentic report related by Muslim on the authority of `Urwah who quotes his father, a companion of the Prophet, as saying: “The Arabs used to do ţawāf around the Ka`bah completely naked with the exception of the Hums, a title given to the Quraysh people and their descendants. They would go around the Sacred House in the nude unless they wore clothes given them by the Hums. Some of the men of Quraysh might give some of their clothes to other men and their women might give to other women. During pilgrimage, the Hums would stay at Muzdalifah, going no further, while the rest of the pilgrims would go as far as ‘Arafat. They justified this by saying: `We, the Quraysh, are the dwellers of the Ĥaram (i.e. the sacred area). No person from the rest of Arabia may do ţawāf wearing any clothes other than our clothes or eating any food other than ours.’ Thus, any Arab who did not have a friend in Makkah to lend him a garment, or did not have the money to hire such a garment, faced the choice of either doing ţawāf naked or wearing his own clothes which he must throw away after he completed his ţawāf. No one else was allowed to touch those clothes after they had been thrown away. Such clothes were considered as discarded clothes, or liqā.”

In his commentary known as Aĥkām al-Qur’ān, al-Qurţubī, a famous scholar, says: “It has been reported that in pre-Islamic days, the Arabs used not to eat any rich food during their pilgrimage, limiting themselves only to eating very little, and they used to do ţawāf naked. They were told: ‘Dress well when you attend any place of worship. Eat and drink but do not be wasteful.” (Verse 31) This is a clear indication that they must not forbid themselves what is lawful. From the linguistic point of view, the term used for ‘being wasteful’ could mean extravagance and could also denote the prohibition of what is lawful. In each case, the practice involves going beyond the proper limits.”

Thus, they assume for themselves the authority to pronounce certain types of dress and food as lawful or forbidden. It then warns them against these, reminding them of the painful lessons their first parents learned in heaven and their suffering as a result of Satan’s scheming against them. It also reminds them of God’s grace, as He has provided them with fine garments. It denounces their claims that what they practised was part of God’s law: “Say, ‘Who is there to forbid the beauty which God has produced for His servants, and the wholesome means of sustenance?’ Say, ‘They are [lawful] in the life of this world, to all who believe — to be theirs alone on the Day of Resurrection. Thus do We make Our revelations clear to people of knowledge.’” (Verse 32) This is coupled with a reference to the absolutely certain knowledge upon which concepts of faith, acts of worship and laws must be established. When all their claims have been refuted, the sūrah reiterates what God has actually forbidden: “Say, ‘My Lord has only forbidden shameful deeds, be they open or secret, and all types of sin, and wrongful oppression, and that you should associate with God anything for which He has given no authority, and that you attribute to God anything of which you have no knowledge.’” (Verse 33) Prior to that, the sūrah clarified divine instructions concerning dress and food: “Children of Adam, dress well when you attend any place of worship. Eat and drink but do not be wasteful.” (Verse 31)

The sūrah does not stop at calling on people to dress well when they attend to any act of worship or to enjoy wholesome food and elegant dress. It censures the prohibitions of such adornment which God has provided for His servants as well as the prohibition of wholesome provisions. The authority to prohibit any thing belongs only to God who has given us the details of what He has forbidden and what He has made lawful in the legal code He has enacted for human life. “Say: ‘Who is there to forbid the beauty which God has produced for His servants, and the wholesome means of sustenance?’” (Verse 32)

This clear disapproval is followed by a statement making clear that such adornment and means of sustenance are for the enjoyment of believers on account of their belief in God, their Lord, who has produced them for the believers. If such matters are also made available in this life to unbelievers, they will be reserved exclusively for believers on the Day of Resurrection. Unbelievers will have no share in them: “Say, ‘They are [lawful] in the life of this world, to all who believe — to be theirs alone on the Day of Resurrection.’” (Verse 32) This could not have been the case if such adornments and provisions were forbidden. God would not have given them something forbidden to be theirs alone in the life to come. “Thus do We make Our revelations clear to people of knowledge.” (Verse 32) Indeed, those who know the essence of this faith well are the ones to benefit by this explanation.

God has certainly forbidden neither what is reasonable of adornment and clothing nor wholesome food and drink. What He has truly forbidden is what those unbelievers used to practise: “Say: ‘My Lord has only forbidden shameful deeds, be they open or secret, and all types of sin, and wrongful oppression, and that you should associate with God anything for which He has given no authority, and that you attribute to God anything of which you have no knowledge.’” (Verse 33)

Because this question, which often appears to be only a side issue, has such great importance in the Islamic view — since it relates to the question of faith and to

promoting sound human nature and proper human values — the sūrah concludes its discussion with a very strong and inspiring comment that is normally used with major issues of faith. The comment reminds human beings that their term on earth is limited, and that when it draws to a close, they cannot delay or hasten it at all: “For every community a term has been set. When [the end of] their term approaches, they can neither delay nor hasten it by a single moment.” (Verse 34)

This is a basic concept of faith which serves here as a reminder so that dormant hearts wake up and realize that they must not let themselves be deluded by an apparently unending life.

The term mentioned in this verse could apply to the end of every generation, which is determined by death, or the term that is allowed for every nation to be strong and prosperous. Whichever meaning we apply to the Qur’ānic verse, the term is pre-determined, and they cannot either delay their deadline or hasten it.

Before we finish our commentary on this passage, we better remind ourselves of the great similarity in how the Qur’ān deals with jāhiliyyah concepts, whether they relate to slaughtered animals, what is lawful of them and what is forbidden, as explained in the previous sūrah, and the way it deals with ignorance and its arbitrary concepts concerning dress and food.

This is in a nutshell the total sum of what God has forbidden. It includes every excess that goes beyond the limits God has laid down, whether committed openly or in secret. It also includes sin, which denotes every disobedience to God, and oppression, which denotes every type of injustice or violation of other people’s rights which God has made clear to all. It further includes ascribing the qualities of Godhead to any being other than God. This includes what used to be practised in ignorant Arabia and what happens in every ignorant society when people accept legislation from any source other than God. God has also forbidden that people should attribute to God something of which they have no knowledge. This includes, by way of example, what they used to assert of prohibition and attributing that to God Himself without any true or sound basis.

Such is the effect of ignorance, or jāhiliyyah, on people. It distorts their nature, taste, concepts and values. If we look at the jāhiliyyah prevailing today in our world we find that it affects people in the same way as the pre-Islamic ignorance affected the pagan Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Persians and all other pagan nations. Modern jāhiliyyah also fools people so that they take off their clothes and shed their sense of shame. Moreover, it describes that as progress and civilization. Chaste Muslim women are described as reactionary and old fashioned, simply because they maintain their standard of propriety when they appear in public. It is the same twisted logic which distorts human nature and turns values and standards upside down. It is also coupled with the same type of arrogance that insists on adhering to what is false and what is unlawful. It is as the Qur’ān says: “Have they, perchance, handed down this [way of thinking] as a legacy to one another? Nay, they are filled with overweening arrogance.” (51: 53)