إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ وَيَصُدُّونَ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْحَرَامِ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلْنَٰهُ لِلنَّاسِ سَوَآءً ٱلْعَٰكِفُ فِيهِ وَٱلْبَادِ
Inna'lladhīna kafarū wa yaṣuddūna ʿan sabīli'llāhi wa'l-masjidi'l-ḥarāmi'lladhī jaʿalnāhu li'n-nāsi sawāʾani'l-ʿākifu fīhi wa'l-bād · Wa man yurid fīhi bi-ilḥādin bi-ẓulmin nudhiqhu min ʿadhābin alīm
"Those who disbelieve and who bar others from the way of God and from the Sacred Mosque, which We appointed for the people — the one who dwells there and the one who comes from outside being equal in it… And whoever seeks in it to swerve from the truth by wrongdoing, We shall make him taste a painful punishment."
The second term of the construct must be recorded: li'n-nās — "for the people". Not for a tribe, not for a city, not for a community.
The same record was entered at al-Baqara 2/125: wa idh jaʿalna'l-bayta mathābatan li'n-nāsi wa amnā. I rely on that treatment and repeat the observation made there: "for the people" — not for a particular community.
And the observation made in al-Baqara goes one step further here, because the verse of al-Ḥajj defines the equality explicitly:
| Word | Root | Who |
|---|---|---|
| ٱلْعَاكِف | ع-ك-ف | The one who stays there — the resident. Iʿtikāf is of the same root: to hold oneself in a place |
| ٱلْبَاد | ب-د-و | The one who comes from outside — from the desert, from the country. Badawī, bādiya are of the same root |
The two words answer to two kinds of man around a place: the one who owns and the one who visits. And the verse sets sawāʾan (equal) between them.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pair of words itself: the equality is established not as an abstract principle but between two concrete positions. And one of the parties equated is the man who lives beside the place. Nearness, therefore, produces no privilege.
The same measure was treated at al-Baqara 2/199 as well: thumma afīḍū min ḥaythu afāḍa'n-nās — "press on from where the people press on." There too a claim of privilege was being removed, and there too the word used was al-nās. I rely on that treatment.
بِإِلْحَادٍۭ بِظُلْمٍ — the root ل-ح-د: to lean from one side to another, to swerve from the straight. Laḥd — the niche dug into the side of a grave; the word comes from this concrete sense. Ilḥād — swerving aside from the straight line.
The root was treated at Fuṣṣilat 41/40 (inna'lladhīna yulḥidūna fī āyātinā). I rely on that treatment. There the swerving concerned the signs; here it concerns a place.