Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 5 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:5

وَٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ لِفُرُوجِهِمْ حَـٰفِظُونَ

“And they who guard their private parts”

Saheeh International

Essence

Guarding one's chastity sits among the marks of the successful, and in this surah it stands at the threshold of the story of how every human life begins.

A reflection

Guarding the doorway the next ayat walk through

This ayah appears almost word for word in Surah al-Ma'arij (70:29), where its images of the frontier gap and the watchful herdsman are explored at length. Here it is worth noticing what surrounds it in this surah, because the setting adds something of its own.

A few ayat later, Al-Mu'minun turns to the making of the human being: from an extract of clay, then a drop placed in a firm resting place, then a clinging form, then a lump, then bones clothed with flesh (23:12-14). The very faculty this ayah asks believers to guard is the one through which that whole sequence begins. The drop of 23:13 is set down in qarārin makīn, a secure and settled place.

Read side by side, the two passages suggest a quiet reflection. Guarding one's private life is not a suspicion of the body. It is respect for the doorway through which Allah brings new people into the world. What passes through that door is meant to arrive in a settled, secure place, inside a bond that can hold a child.

One classical commentator also notices the rhythm of this list. Prayer, something done, is followed by idle talk, something left. Then zakah, something done, is followed by this guarding, something held back. The list alternates between giving out and holding in. A life of faith, on this picture, needs both open hands and closed doors, each in its proper place.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.