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The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

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24: 62<br />

Light 225<br />

‘<strong>The</strong>y will worship Me and not join anything with Me.’ Those who<br />

are defiant after that will be the rebels. – 56 [People], keep up the<br />

prayer, pay the prescribed alms, and obey the Messenger, so that you<br />

may be given mercy. 57 Do not think [Prophet] that the disbelievers<br />

can escape God on earth; the Fire will be their final home, an evil<br />

end.<br />

58 Believers, your slaves and any who have not yet reached puberty<br />

should ask your permission to come in at three times of day: before<br />

the dawn prayer; when you lay your garments aside in the midday<br />

heat; and after the evening prayer. <strong>The</strong>se are your three times for<br />

privacy; at other times, there is no blame on you or them if you move<br />

around each other freely. In this way God makes messages clear:<br />

God is all knowing, all wise. 59 When your children reach puberty,<br />

they should [always] ask your permission to enter, like their elders<br />

do. This is how God makes His messages clear to you: God is all<br />

knowing, all wise. 60 No blame will be attached to elderly women who<br />

are not hoping for sex, if they take off their outer garments without<br />

flaunting their charms, but it is preferable for them not to do this:<br />

God is all hearing, all seeing.<br />

61 No blame will be attached to the blind, the lame, the sick. a<br />

Whether you eat in your own houses, or those of your fathers,<br />

your mothers, your brothers, your sisters, your paternal uncles,<br />

your paternal aunts, your maternal uncles, your maternal aunts,<br />

houses you have the keys for, or any of your friends’ houses, you will<br />

not be blamed: you will not be blamed whether you eat in company<br />

or separately. b When you enter any house, greet one another with a<br />

greeting of blessing and goodness as enjoined by God. This is how<br />

God makes His messages clear to you so that you may understand.<br />

62 <strong>The</strong> true believers are those who believe in God and His Messenger,<br />

who, when they are gathered with him on a communal matter,<br />

do not depart until they have asked his permission – those who<br />

ask your permission [Prophet] are the ones who truly believe in God<br />

and His Messenger. When they ask your permission to attend to<br />

their private affairs, allow whoever you see fit and ask God to forgive<br />

a Commentators state that the blind etc. refrained from eating with the healthy, or<br />

that the healthy refused to eat with them, and many link this statement to the following<br />

one.<br />

b Some commentators take this to be a qualification of 4: 29, which was interpreted<br />

by some Muslims as a prohibition on eating at each other’s houses without invitation.

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