Surah Al-A'raf 7:26-31 - Quran Translation Commentary

26. O Children of Adam! We have sent down to you raiment ³⁶ that may cover your private parts and may also” be an adornment,³⁷ and the raiment of righteousness is the best³⁸ (raiment). That is one of the signs of Allah that they may be reminded.³⁹

27. O Children of Adam! Let not Satan seduce you,⁴⁰ as he had seduced your parents out of paradise, had stripped them of their garments to reveal them their private parts.⁴¹ He and his tribe see you whence you cannot see them.⁴² We have made the devils guardians over the disbelievers.

28. And when they commit an indecent act, they say: “We found our fathers doing so, and Allah has commanded us to do so.” Say: “ Allah never commands to do an indecent act; Would you tell of Allah what you do not know?”⁴³

29. Say: “My Lord has enjoined justice,⁴⁴ and set your faces upright towards Him in every place of worship⁴⁵ and call Him, making the devotion only for Him.⁴⁶ As He created you in the beginning, so shall you return.”

30. A group He guided, and another group deserved to go astray: indeed they have chosen the devils as their comrades instead of Allah, and think that they are on the right path.

31. O Children of Adam ! Dress well every time when you go to mosque,⁴⁷ and eat and drink,⁴⁸ and waste not by excess. Allah does not like the wasters.

Commentary

36. Raiment, garments or clothing are prepared from the material created by God. The capability of making clothing is that of man, but that capability too is granted to man by God. Since garments for man are a valuable gift from God and is a divine blessing, it has been mentioned to have been sent down by Allah.

37. Here two important purposes of clothing have been mentioned. First is to cover the body and secondly to adorn the wearer. It repudiates the religious concept which bestows sanctity on nakedness and also the ideology of hippyism, which strips man of his clothing and converts him into a beast. Allah has made clothing a means of adornment. Therefore, nice-looking and fine clothes, provided they are within limits, is a desirable thing. It negates the excessive coarseness in clothing practised by the severe type of worshippers.

38. In keeping with the occasion, attention has been drawn from the physical clothing to the spiritual clothing-that as the external garment is a means of adornment for man, similarly equally, nay much higher means of adornment is righteousness or the spiritual garment for man’s inner self. Therefore, man should adorn himself with the garment of righteousness.

39. Clothing is the demand of the human nature. If man contemplates over as to how richly and magnanimously this demand has been met, he would see that his Creator has not made him an animal, and that He wants him, by adorning and refining him, to place him on the high level of humanity. In this way Allah has placed His signs even in clothing, so that man may recognise his Creator and may realise his own true position.

40. The account of Satan’s seducing Adam, related above, is a true event. It is a factual account of the human history which was hidden in the curtain of the Unseen. Quran has brought it to light so that man may recognise his primary foe, Satan, and may remain wary of his trickery and machinations.

Quran introduces Satan (Iblees) as a personality having consciousness and a will and that it belongs to the race of Jinns. It is as helpless a creature as other helpless creatures created by Allah. He disobeyed Allah and became a rebel. Therefore, he was led astray by God. He had become jealous as to why Adam was considered superior to him, and owing to this jealousy he had become a sworn enemy of man. Allah’s plan for this earth was that here man may be tested in the matter of good and evil. For this reason, He granted respite to Satan when he demanded it, so that he may carry on his work of seduction in the world and those of the men that want to be seduced by him may fall prey to his temptations. However he was not given the power to force anybody to be seduced by him. The opportunity given to him for spreading evil is in keeping with the wisdom of Allah, since he is not outside the pale of Allah’s power, and on the Day of Resurrection Allah will throw him, his army and all his minions into the everlasting fire of Hell.

In view of this fact it is not correct to think that Satan has no physical and personal existence, but that he is merely an imaginary character that has been presented to save people from evil. And it is also not correct to consider Satan as a rival of God, as the fire-worshippers think, and for whom they have given the name” Ahriman. “Similarly it is not proper to consider Satan as the “God of evil,” as is imagined in some polytheistic religions. All such concepts are against reality and are false.

41. Adam and Hawwa (Eve) lived in the Paradise as a couple, where there was no problem of passing urine, excreta, and of reproduction, therefore, their private parts were so hidden from themselves by the raiment of the Paradise that they did not see them. But when Satan succeeded in hoodwinking them and the sin was committed by them, their private parts became manifest to them, and they had to get out of Paradise. Since this expulsion from the Paradise had been the result of Satan’s tempting them, it has been described as Satan’s seducing them out of Paradise.

42. Satan is an enemy whom man cannot see. However, his being unseen does not mean that he does not exist, particularly when the Creator of the world Himself is informing us. about his existence, and the battles of good and evil that had been raging in the world throughout the human history and the wickedness and ‘corruption that are so rampant in the world are an open proof of the fact that an unseen power is vigorously active in leading mankind astray.

There are innumerable things which can be seen with the human eyes with the help of telescope and microscope, but these very things were unseeable before the invention of these instruments. Therefore, to deny the existence of things which are not perceived by human senses is not a reasonable thing, especially when the information about their existence is being given by other reliable sources.

It is also learnt from this verse that man cannot see Satan and his tribe, which belong to the race of Jinns, except when Allah may have provided for the same, as He had done in the case of prophet Sulaiman. Therefore, it is useless to try to see Satan and his tribe. Besides, the strange stories about the appearances of Jinns, etc., which are commonly believed are also unreliable.

Say: “What my Lord has indeed forbidden are: indecencies, whether open or secret, and sin and excesses without justice, and that you associate partners with Allah for which no sanction has been sent down by Him, and that you say things in the name of Allah, of which you have no knowledge.” (Al-Quran)

43. The Arabs used to go round the House of Ka ‘ba in a nude state. Men used to go round the Ka’ba naked during the day while the women did so in the night. However, Quresh were exempted from this. This practice had become a religious rite, because they considered their religion. which came down to them from their forefathers and in which this innovation of going round in a naked state, had come from God. The idea behind this innovation was that clothes were worldly adornments and the ceremony of going round Ka‘ba should be kept free and pure from this worldly contamination. In this way they were’ indulging in a shameful act in the name of religion, because healthy nature considers nakedness as a shameful act. As regards the claim that Allah had ordained so, there is no proof to this effect. nor can this be accepted that Allah might have given the command to indulge in shameful acts. Therefore. this claim is not based on knowledge, but on Ignorance.

Those who consider nakedness as holy exist even today. The sadhus and sanyasis are content to have only a strip around their private parts (langoti). and there are some who remain absolutely naked to express their religiosity. However, the fact is that when man follows the path of polytheism and disbelief, his thinking is jeopardized.

44. The word “Qist” (justice) used in the text is used in a wide sense. The word also means rightness, moderation, appropriateness and justice. It signifies that Allah does not command men to do such shameful acts as require a man to be naked, but that His commands are based on justice and through His commands full justice is done to the human nature. He does not give a command which is unjust and oppressive for the human nature and moral position. His commands do not contain excessive demands, but are based on perfect moderation, and they are extremely appropriate for the human life. He has commanded men to adopt rightness in every matter. It is strange why in the name of religion man accepts methods and practices which have a definitely obvious adverse effect on his morality, and which a being with some sanity and sense of proportion would automatically spurn.

45. That is: In worship your face should be towards Allah only, whether you may be in the Masjid-i-Haram or in any other worshipping place. No thought of the worship of any being other than Allah should come in man’s heart.

Setting the faces upright towards Allah also means that man should worship Allah directly and should not worship Him through the agency or medium of any other being.

46. For explanation, please see Note No.9, Surah Bayyinah.

47. That is: Whether it may be the Masjid-i- Haram or any other mosque, attendance there should be in proper clothing and not in a naked state, because attendance in the presence of Allah must be in a proper and respectable manner.

48. The idea is to repudiate the excessive and ascetic way of living which makes a man aggressive in matters of food and clothing, as if these are the pollution and contamination of the world which have to be given up. Then such a concept of religion prompts a man to suppress his self despite there being sufficient food available. As against this, Islam declares these things as the blessings and bounty of God, which have been created for the benefit of man only. However, as is mentioned in the verse further on, man should avoid committing excesses and being wasteful.