Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 25 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:25

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ وَيَصُدُّونَ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْحَرَامِ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلْنَـٰهُ لِلنَّاسِ سَوَآءً ٱلْعَـٰكِفُ فِيهِ وَٱلْبَادِ ۚ وَمَن يُرِدْ فِيهِ بِإِلْحَادٍۭ بِظُلْمٍ نُّذِقْهُ مِنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ

“Indeed, those who have disbelieved and avert [people] from the way of Allāh and [from] al-Masjid al-Ḥarām, which We made for the people - equal are the resident therein and one from outside - and [also] whoever intends [a deed] therein[922] of deviation [in religion] by wrongdoing - We will make him taste of a painful punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

One House on earth was made level for the local and the stranger alike, and there even a heart's settled lean towards wrong is weighed.

A reflection

The local and the stranger, on level ground

A man has lived beside the same city park for forty years. He calls it 'my park'. On summer Sundays, families arrive by bus from across town with cool boxes and footballs. He mutters at them from his bench. Nobody gave him the park. He simply got there first, and stayed.

The ayah describes the Sacred Mosque with one word that would have stung its first hearers: sawāʾ, level. 'We made it for the people, level.' Level between whom? 'The one who stays in it and the one who comes from outside'. The lexicons picture the root as rough ground smoothed flat, no part higher than another. The ʿākif is the one who keeps to a place and will not leave its side. The bād comes from the root of open desert. He is the one who appears out of the bare country, with no walls to screen him.

The commentaries record how seriously the early generation took this. Several reports say the people of Makkah had no better claim to their lodgings in the season than the pilgrims did. Whoever found space first could settle in it. One report says ʿUmar forbade the people of Makkah to put doors on their houses, so that arrivals could stay wherever they liked. When a man fitted a door anyway, ʿUmar asked whether he meant to shut it in the face of the pilgrims of Allah's House. The man said he only wanted to keep their belongings safe from thieves, and ʿUmar let it stand.

The jurists later differed on what this means for the houses of Makkah, and the commentaries set those views out at length. The core they share is not disputed. In this House, years of residence earn no rank. The family who have prayed there for seventy years and the convert who arrived last Tuesday stand on level ground.

That is a hard word for every 'my park' in us. We each have places where we have quietly become the owner. A usual spot in the mosque, a committee we founded, a table at the café. The ayah does not ask you to stop loving those places. It asks you to remember who made them, and for whom. 'We made it,' it says, 'for the people.' What He gave to everyone cannot be fenced by whoever came through the gate first.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.