al-Aʿrāf 7:28-30

Wa idhā faʿalū fāḥishatan qālū wajadnā ʿalayhā ābāʾanā wa'llāhu amaranā bihā, qul inna'llāha lā yaʾmuru bi'l-faḥshāʾ, a-taqūlūna ʿala'llāhi mā lā taʿlamūn · Qul amara rabbī bi'l-qisṭ, wa aqīmū wujūhakum ʿinda kulli masjidin wa'dʿūhu mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn, kamā badaʾakum taʿūdūn · Farīqan hadā wa farīqan ḥaqqa ʿalayhimu'ḍ-ḍalāla, innahumu'ttakhadhu'sh-shayāṭīna awliyāʾa min dūni'llāhi wa yaḥsabūna annahum muhtadūn

"When they commit an indecency they say, 'We found our forefathers upon it, and God commanded it of us.' Say: God does not command indecency. Do you say about God what you do not know? · Say: My Lord commanded justice. Set your faces towards Him at every place of prayer, and call upon Him, making the religion His alone. As He brought you forth in the beginning, so you will return. · One party He guided, and upon another party going astray became due. For they took the satans as guardians instead of God, and they suppose themselves to be rightly guided."

The twenty-eighth verse gives the two grounds of the addressee side by side, and the word order must be recorded:

And the answer is given only to the second: qul inna'llāha lā yaʾmuru bi'l-faḥshāʾ.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the position of the answer: the first excuse (the forefathers) is dealt with elsewhere in the sūra (7/70 — wa nadhara mā kāna yaʿbudu ābāʾunā; 7/173 — innamā ashraka ābāʾunā min qablu). What is answered here is the second excuse: the ascription of a behaviour to God.

And the answer has two steps:

The expression in the second step must be recorded: mā lā taʿlamūn — "what you do not know". And the same expression will come back in the thirty-third verse as the last item in the list of what is forbidden: wa an taqūlū ʿala'llāhi mā lā taʿlamūn.

The same expression five verses apart, one a question and one a ruling. This is a link that can be verified within the sūra, and it will be completed at verse 33.

The sense of the root: an indecency that exceeds the bound. The lexicographers explain fuḥsh as "an ugliness that exceeds the measure, in word or in deed". The word is not of sexual content alone; the root's own idea is the coming together of excess and ugliness.

The root was treated at 24/19 in al-Nūr and at 33/30 in al-Aḥzāb; I rely on those treatments.

And in this sūra the root occurs three times: 28 (fāḥishatan), 33 (al-fawāḥisha), 80 (a-taʾtūna'l-fāḥisha — Lot's question to his people).

The root carries a curious double sense, and it must be recorded:

That is, the same root gives two opposed senses according to the form. The lexicographers explain this by "the privative sense of Form IV": aqsaṭa = "to remove wrong". The root was treated at 55/9 in al-Raḥmān (wa aqīmu'l-wazna bi'l-qisṭ) and at 57/25 in al-Ḥadīd (li-yaqūma'n-nāsu bi'l-qisṭ). I rely on those treatments.

A point of word order must be recorded, and it is a contrast:

The same verb (أمر) stands facing itself in two verses: one a claim, the other an announcement. And the objects are opposites: fāḥisha (an indecency that exceeds the bound) ↔ qisṭ (that which is in its proper place).

Aqīmū wujūhakum — "set your faces straight".

A point of word order: ʿinda kulli masjid — "at every place of prayer". And the same phrase will be repeated in the thirty-first verse: khudhū zīnatakum ʿinda kulli masjid.

The same adverbial two verses apart. I record this as an observation: both commands concern the place of prayer — one a turning towards, the other a preparing.

And the expression mukhliṣīna lahu'd-dīn must be recorded. The root خ-ل-ص: to be pure, unmixed. The distinction between mukhliṣ (active participle) and mukhlaṣ (passive participle) was tabulated at 38/83 in Ṣād; I rely on that treatment. Here mukhliṣīna is the active participle: the work the person does himself.

The sentence is short and dense: "as He began you, so you will return."

Two readings are transmitted:

Both readings are transmitted and they do not exclude each other; I do not impose a preference.

And the making of the first creation into a proof of the raising was treated in many places in the index (Yāsīn 36/79, al-Qiyāma 75/40, al-Rūm 30/27, al-Anbiyāʾ 21/104). I rely on those treatments.

The word order of this sentence must be recorded, and it is striking.

The two sides are not built symmetrically. In the first the verb is active and the agent plain (hadā — "He guided"); in the second the verb is ḥaqqa (became due) and its subject is al-ḍalāla, that is, it does not say "He led astray".

I record this as an observation, and it is a new link in a pattern treated in the index. Similar asymmetries were recorded in al-Zumar and al-Muddaththir. And no polemic of kalām is entered into in this commentary (Method); all I record is the datum of word order.

And the continuation of the verse shows that the condition of the second party is grounded in their own acts: innahumu'ttakhadhu'sh-shayāṭīna awliyāʾa min dūni'llāh — "for they took the satans as guardians."

The sentence must be recorded: "they suppose themselves to be rightly guided."

The same idea occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān too and was treated in the index:

Four places, the same verb (ح-س-ب) and the same structure. I rely on those treatments and do not repeat them here.

What belongs here is this, and I give it as an observation: al-Aʿrāf and al-Zukhruf 43/37 are word for word the same sentence. And in al-Aʿrāf this sentence, read together with min ḥaythu lā tarawnahum ("from where you do not see them") in the twenty-seventh verse, forms a whole: not seeing, and supposing that one sees.