al-Maʿārij 70:29-31

Wa'lladhīna hum li-furūjihim ḥāfiẓūn · Illā ʿalā azwājihim aw mā malakat aymānuhum fa-innahum ghayru malūmīn · Fa-mani'btaghā warāʾa dhālika fa-ulāʾika humu'l-ʿādūn "And those who guard their chastity — save with their wives and those their right hands possess; for these they are not blamed. Whoever seeks beyond that, they are the ones who transgress."

These three verses are almost word for word the same as al-Muʾminūn 23/5-7.

This is a rare thing in the Qurʾān: the same three verses repeated in two sūras. And the repeated block stands in the middle of this list.

The two lists must be seen together, because the parallel is not confined to three verses.

Three things stand out.

One. Both lists open with prayer and close with prayer. In al-Muʾminūn the opening is "they are humble in their prayer" and the close "they guard their prayers"; in al-Maʿārij the opening is "they are constant in their prayer" and the close "they guard their prayer".

And the last item of both is the same verb: يُحَافِظُونَ. And both use the same particle: ʿalā.

Two. Al-Muʾminūn says صَلَوَاتِهِمْ (plural), al-Maʿārij صَلَاتِهِمْ (singular). A small but real difference. The plural looks at the individual prayers; the singular takes the prayer as an institution.

Three. Al-Maʿārij's list has two extra items: affirming the day of reckoning (26) and upholding testimonies (33). And there is one item present in al-Muʾminūn and absent from al-Maʿārij: turning away from idle talk.

There may be a reason for these differences, and I record it as my own reading: al-Maʿārij's list is framed as the antidote to a diagnosis. The sūra defined man as halūʿ: one who does not think of the reckoning, who holds on and who cannot bear. The two items added to the list look directly at that diagnosis — affirmation closes the matter of the reckoning, testimony the matter of another's right.

Al-Muʾminūn's list, by contrast, is not the antidote to a diagnosis; it is a description of deliverance (qad aflaḥa). Its content may therefore have been arranged differently.

This is a reading; the verses of the two sūras are data that can be verified.

فُرُوج — Root: ف-ر-ج. Faraja — to open, to part; furja, the gap or opening between two things. Faraj, the relief of a hardship, an easing. فَرْج — an opening on the body; the word is a veiled expression.

The word is itself a veil: no direct naming is done; "opening" is said instead. The Qurʾān's language on this subject is generally of this kind.

حَٰفِظُون — Root: ح-ف-ظ. To guard, to preserve, to watch over. Ḥāfiẓ, ḥifẓ and muḥāfaẓa are from the same root.

And this root occurs twice in the list:

The same root, at the two ends of the list. And this is the list's second frame — alongside prayer.

And the patterns differ. Ḥāfiẓūn is a simple active participle; yuḥāfiẓūna is of the mufāʿala form, and that form conveys reciprocity or sustained effort. The function of the mufāʿala form was treated in the section on al-Māʿūn.

So guarding chastity is a state, guarding prayer an effort.

I record this as an observation about patterns; the metres of the two words are data that can be verified.

This expression is a matter of jurisprudence, and per the method (Method) no legal ruling is issued here. In the classical legal literature there is a broad discussion of the scope of the expression "mā malakat aymānuhum", its historical application and its present-day equivalent; that discussion is not the subject of this section and is referred to the works of those qualified in it.

The linguistic data that must be recorded are these:

• أَزْوَٰج — Root: ز-و-ج. Zawj is each member of a pair. In Arabic zawj is used of both man and woman; the word means "spouse" and by itself conveys no gender.
• أَيْمَٰن — Root: ي-م-ن. Right hands. Mā malakat aymānuhum — "what their right hands possess"; it is an established construct for ownership in Arabic.
• غَيْرُ مَلُومِينَ — Root: ل-و-م. Lawm — to blame. Malūm — one who is blamed. The expression is not a ruling but the lifting of a blame: "for these they are not blamed."

ٱبْتَغَىٰ — Root: ب-غ-ي. Ibtighāʾ (the iftiʿāl form) — to seek, to want, to pursue. From the same root comes بَغْي — to transgress, to act wrongfully. The link between the two senses: wanting excessively leads to crossing a limit.

وَرَآء — Root: و-ر-ي. Behind, beyond. This word was treated in the section on al-Inshiqāq 84/10 (warāʾa ẓahrihī) and there its link with al-Burūj 85/20 was framed.

Here its sense is "beyond": outside the limit set.

ٱلْعَادُون — Root: ع-د-و. ʿAdā — to overstep a limit, to encroach, to be hostile. ʿAduww (enemy), ʿudwān (aggression) and iʿtidāʾ are from the same root. عَادُون is the plural of the active participle: those who transgress.

And this word links up with the diagnosis of the sūra.

The sūra defined man as halūʿ, and halūʿ is by definition without measure: greed that is never sated, endurance that does not hold. And here, in the middle of the list, the name of measurelessness appears: al-ʿādūn.

So the list, while counting the contrary of being halūʿ, also names once the crossing of a limit.

I record this as my own reading. The senses of the two words are data that can be verified.

And the word's closest occurrence in the Qurʾān is on the same subject:

"You leave the wives your Lord created for you. Indeed you are a people who transgress." (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/166 — bal antum qawmun ʿādūn)

The same word, in the same field. And the root's sense of "crossing a limit" appears also in the verb iʿtidāʾ from the same root: "You know those among you who violated the Sabbath" (al-Baqara 2/65).