al-Jinn 72:18

Wa anna'l-masājida li'llāhi fa-lā tadʿū maʿa'llāhi aḥadā

"And that: the places of prostration belong to God; so do not call upon anyone along with God."

This is the key verse of the grammatical question taken up at the head of the sūra. The command "do not call upon" could be read as a word the jinn said to their own people; but the flow and the cast of addressees show the sentence to be the revelation's own address. Indeed no divergence is transmitted over the fatḥa reading of the hamza in this verse.

Root س-ج-د: to bend, to fall to the ground, to bow the neck. Masjid is on the pattern of a noun of place: the place where prostration is made.

On the sense of the word in this verse there is more than one view in the classical commentaries:

All three explanations are found in the classical commentaries. The first and second readings do not exclude one another and are the ones that sit best with the context: the sentence gives a ruling about a place, and then says what is not to be done in that place.

The third explanation is possible in point of language but makes a weaker link with what follows ("do not call upon"). I transmit it; I do not prefer it.

I make no definite preference between the first and second readings, but this has to be stated: the second reading is more consonant with the sūra as a whole. For the sūra is not conducting a dispute about temples; it is speaking about the address of a turning. This preference is not binding.

The lām here conveys ownership and assignment: belonging and appropriation. The sentence is a nominal sentence, without a verb — as was recorded in the sections on al-Fātiḥa and al-Ikhlāṣ, a nominal sentence conveys fixity and continuity. Not "they became God's" but "they are God's" — a state, not an event.

فَ — the particle of consequence. That the place belongs to God is the ground of the ruling: since these places are His, therefore…

دَعَا — root د-ع-و: to call, to summon, to ask for help. Duʿāʾ is to call to someone and ask something. The word's use in the Qurʾān is wide, and there are places where it is identified with worship itself.

مَعَ اللَّهِ — "along with God". The choice of this particle is very important and is generally passed over.

The verse does not say "do not call upon any other than God". It says "do not call upon anyone along with God".

The difference is this:

• "other than God" — forbids putting another in the place of the turning.
• "along with God" — forbids adding another to the turning.

The second is more comprehensive. For the Meccan mushrikūn were not rejecting God in any case; they accepted God and put others beside Him. The Qurʾān records this in several places: "We serve them only that they may bring us near to God" (al-Zumar 39/3 — this verse was cited in the section on al-Ikhlāṣ too).

That is, the prohibition is aimed at association, not at substitution. And this comes out at the same place as the finding set up in al-Baqara in the discussion of "andād" (equals): "One does not have to put a thing in God's place; it is enough to put it on the same line with Him."

أَحَدًا — its third occurrence in the sūra, again in a negative context, again "anyone at all".

This verse is the common solution to two separate problems in the first half of the sūra:

• In verse 6 human beings were seeking refuge with the jinn — a turning to the wrong address.
• In verse 3 a consort and a child were being ascribed to God — a wrong conception.

Verse 18 cuts both off at once: the turning is single, and nothing is added to that turning.

And in verse 20 the Prophet will repeat the same sentence from his own mouth: "I call only upon my Lord and I associate no one with Him." That is, two verses after the command is given, the messenger of the one who gave it declares that he too obeys that command.