Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 30 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:30

ذَٰلِكَ وَمَن يُعَظِّمْ حُرُمَـٰتِ ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّهُۥ عِندَ رَبِّهِۦ ۗ وَأُحِلَّتْ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَنْعَـٰمُ إِلَّا مَا يُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ ۖ فَٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ ٱلرِّجْسَ مِنَ ٱلْأَوْثَـٰنِ وَٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ قَوْلَ ٱلزُّورِ

“That [has been commanded], and whoever honors the sacred ordinances of Allāh - it is best for him in the sight of his Lord. And permitted to you are the grazing livestock, except what is recited to you.[925] So avoid the uncleanliness of idols and avoid false statement,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Honour what Allah has made inviolable, enjoy the wide space He has made lawful, and keep well clear of two counterfeits: idols and false speech.

A reflection

Honour is something you do with your hands

The ayah opens with a single word, dhālika: that. One classical comment likens it to a writer closing one subject before opening the next. That is so. Now hear something larger.

The larger thing is ḥurumāt Allāh, the sanctities of Allah. The commentaries give the phrase different widths. Some say the prohibitions of the pilgrimage. Some name five sacred things: the Kaʿbah, the Sacred Mosque, the sacred city, the sacred month, and the pilgrim in iḥrām. Others say every command and prohibition of Allah. One careful reading gathers them all. Sanctities are whatever must be respected and protected: rights, persons, times and places. To honour them is to give each its due and guard it from neglect.

That last phrase matters. Honour here is not a warm feeling. It is a way of handling things.

Picture a conservator in a library basement turning the pages of a medieval manuscript. She wears no gloves, because cotton snags. She lifts each page with a smooth bone folder. She never licks a finger. Nobody is watching her. Her care is how she says this matters.

Now carry that into ordinary life. A promise made to a child is a sanctity. So is a neighbour's reputation, a stranger's trust, the last ten nights, the moment of the call to prayer. The person who honours them handles them as the conservator handles vellum.

The ego dislikes this. It wants every hour available, every person usable, every boundary negotiable. A life with no sanctities feels free at first. In practice it means nothing is safe from you, including the people you love.

The verb is yuʿaẓẓim: to hold something great. Its root first named bone, the hard frame under the flesh. Honouring is not inflating a thing's importance. It is recognising the frame Allah has already put inside it, and refusing to bend it.

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.