Al-Ma'idah 5:92–120

During Hajj or ‘umrah (the pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah) it is the rule that before reaching the Ka‘bah, people are required to put on ahram (specified dress) at and from some specified places (miqat). Thereafter, on the journey towards the Ka‘bah, pilgrims come across many birds and animals which they could easily hunt, but this has been declared haram (forbidden). Hunting personally, or through others, is prohibited in these conditions. According to tradition, this verse was revealed during the Hudaybiyyah journey, when the Muslims were clad in ihram with the intention of performing ‘umrah. At that time, many birds and animals were roaming about so close that they could have been easily hunted down with arrows or spears. The Muslims wanted to hunt, as they normally did, to meet their requirements. But they immediately stopped on receiving this order. This order, which is applicable under ihram, has to be followed by the common man in day-to-day life.

The real purpose of this order is that God may know those who fear Him, even if they cannot see Him. God has placed human beings in this world, but has concealed Himself from their eyes. Now, He wants to see who, without seeing Him, is so reality-conscious as to behave righteously, as if he were actually seeing Him with all His powers, unlike those who, not finding God before them, become fearless and behave as they please. This is experienced not only during the short period of the pilgrimage, but also on a daily basis in human relations. A man may gain such control over another that it is quite possible for him to threaten his life, ruin him financially or falsely defame and degrade him. Now, under these conditions, there may conversely be a man who, in spite of having such control and similar opportunity, holds his peace and stays his hands out of fear of God. Of these two, the latter has proved that he fears God without seeing Him, while the former has proved otherwise. The latter has countless divine blessings in store for him, while there shall be a terrible punishment for the former.

Hunting is prohibited (haram) while in the state of ihram. This prohibition was ordained, not because of any feature inherent in the thing prohibited, but as a matter of human trial. In order to test man, God chose to ban certain items symbolically. However, wherever the Law-Giver felt that the trial might cause unnecessary hardship to His subjects, the Law was relaxed. For example, for pilgrims who travel by sea or river to the House of God, it is legitimate to fish in the waters and eat the catch if, during the voyage, there is nothing else available to them. Indeed, they have no alternative if they are to save their lives.

The Ka‘bah is the eternal centre for Islam and the Islamic community. By declaring it essential to turn towards the Ka‘bah to say one’s prayers (salat,), God has linked each and every Muslim with the centrality of the Ka‘bah. Then by means of Hajj (pilgrimage) it has been made the international meeting place of Islam. The symbolic rites to be performed in connection with the pilgrimage to the Ka‘bah are of great importance, not because of any inherent holiness in them, but because they are the signs of the trial of man. When a subject of God carries out His commandments on these symbolic rites, he reminds himself that though God is not apparently visible, He is actively present—He gives commands; He keeps a watch on His subjects; He is aware of all our actions. These thoughts develop fear of God in man and make him able to remain a true subject of God throughout the vicissitudes of his life. It is a human weakness to give the utmost importance to the drawing of crowds, and to accumulating an abundance of showy worldly goods, etc. In the eyes of God, however, importance attaches only to quality. Quantity has no value for Him. Those who rush towards ‘abundance’ and attach no value to truth think they are very clever, but in reality they are unwise. One who orders his life in fear of God and not on account of material considerations or worldly cares, is the one who is truly successful.

It has been recorded in the traditions that when the order regarding Hajj was received, the Prophet Muhammad said in a sermon ‘O, people! Hajj has been made compulsory for you.’ On hearing this, a person from the Banu Asad tribe got up and asked: ‘O, Prophet of God! Is it for every year?’ The Prophet Muhammad was very angry and said, ‘By the Lord in whose hands my life is! Had I said “‘Yes”, it would have become compulsory for every year, and having become compulsory for every year, you would not have been able to perform it every year and thus committed denial of truth.’ So, leave out whatever I leave out. When I order anything to be done, do it, and when I prohibit you from doing anything, don’t do it.’ (Tafsir ibn Kathir).

These are different categories of domestic animals which the pre-Islamic Arabs used to dedicate to their deities.

The ban on raising unnecessary questions in force at the time of the revelation of the Quran is applicable even today. The best and correct thing to do is to keep any order that is given in its original form. There should be no attempt, by raising unnecessary questions, to extend or reduce the limits of its restriction. Making a brief command more detailed, making an absolute command a limited one and making efforts to make an indefinite order definite, are additions in religion which God and the Prophet have prohibited. The former elders of a community attain holy status after a certain passage of time. Many kinds of wrong practices occur in the name of these long deceased people. So much so that if they had established the custom of venerating sheeps and camels, their successors would go on doing so without giving any thought to it. Such misguided behaviour, which is based on a tradition of holiness, is so firmly and deeply rooted that it is very difficult to dissuade people from it. It is possible to rise above such psychological complications only when a man acquires a firm belief, in the real sense, that finally he has to appear before God. One holding such a belief man accepts today itself what he will be compelled to accept after death; but acceptance at that time will be of no use to anyone.

If a man is on a journey and he senses that the time of his death is approaching, he should seek out two Muslims and hand over his personal possessions to them with proper instructions about bequeathing them to his inheritors. If he cannot find two Muslims in time, he should do likewise with two non-Muslims. These two persons should bring his possessions and hand them over to his heirs. At that time, if the inheritors have any doubts about the statement of the witnesses, they (the latter) should be detained in a mosque and should be made to take an oath before the general body of Muslims, which will testify that whatever they have said on behalf of the deceased was correct. If the inheritors are not satisfied with the statement on oath of the witnesses, then two of the inheritors should take an oath to that effect. Thereafter, a decision should be taken in accordance with their declaration. The giving of this right to the inheritors amounts to the establishment of a check, due to which no one will dare to commit a breach of trust.

In the Islamic law, such instructions are given concerning day-to-day life as provide lessons in a wider sphere of existence.. After a person’s death the division of his property is a family and economic matter. But this has been made a source of training in two important respects. One is that people should adopt the attitude of not giving consideration in their dealings to connections and relations: they should take into account only rights and truth. They should see what the truth is and not question who is favoured by it and who is not. The other is that every procedure should be treated as giving evidence before God. Anything which is in the custody of man is in God’s trust, because man saw it given by God with his own eyes, preserved it in his memory as given by God and now has to declare it with the help of the tongue given by God. Under these circumstances it will be a breach of trust if a man does not state the facts as he has seen them or committed them to memory.

Those who embraced the faith on the strength of their prophets’ teachings later fell away from the true religion and concocted their own religion in the name of the prophet. In spite of this, every group treated itself as the ummah (community) of its prophet, though after deviating from the real teachings of that prophet, they ceased to have any link with him. The Jews claim to have a connection with Moses and the Christians with Jesus, though their present religions are unconnected with those prophets. This fact has become obscure in the present world of trial. But, on the Day of Judgement, all will be made clear. On that Day, God will assemble all the prophets and, in the presence of their communities, He will ask them what teachings they gave their community and how the community adopted them. In this way, it will be made clear to every community before its prophet as to how far its members contravened their prophet’s teachings on the religion of God, and it will be shown how they had falsely linked their self-made religion with the prophet.

Among those prophets, there is the example of Jesus, who is an intermediate link between the earlier prophets and the last of the prophets. Jesus was given very special miracles to perform. Those who had embraced the faith through him were very few in number and his opponents, the Jews, enjoyed worldly power. In spite of this, they could not inflict any harm on him and were not successful in destroying his companions. The result of these miracles should have been that people should have accepted the religion brought by him. But what actually happened was that his opponents ignored him, saying that the miracles performed by him were merely feats of magic. On the contrary, those who embraced his faith later on gave him the status of a god. On Judgement Day, it will be made clear to those who claim to be his followers that whatever feats Jesus had performed were all done at God’s behest. It was God who saved him from the dangers presented by his opponents. When this was the true state of affairs and Jesus himself will testify to this, standing before them, then his people will have to explain who had given them the religion which they had wrongly attributed to Jesus.

It is the dayee who performs the duty of calling upon people to Truth. But a positive response to this call cannot be given unless it is God-inspired. Even after being convinced of the veracity of the call, a man still does not necessarily proceed to accept it, as many impediments still remain—the appearance of the missionary as a common man; the fear that on acceptance of the call the structure of the life already built up will crumble, the question that if this is the Truth, whether certain great men were strangers to the Truth, etc. This is a critical juncture where a man is unable to take a decision, even having reached the stage of decision-making. This is the point at which God helps him. He holds the hands of a person in whom He sees some goodness and leads him across the borders of doubt and ushers him into the area of certainty.

Man is constantly being provided with the provisions for his life by God. In fact, the whole earth has become a table laid with provisions for man. But the demand made by the believers in Jesus for food to be sent down from the sky caused a severe warning to be given to them. The reason for this is that the provisions we receive under normal conditions are routed through a veil of cause and effect, while the demand of the believers involved the removal of that veil. This is again the way of God, because if this veil is removed, how can the conditions for human trial be perpetuated?

Man is constantly being provided with the provisions for his life by God. In fact, the whole earth has become a table laid with provisions for man. But the demand made by the believers in Jesus for food to be sent down from the sky caused a severe warning to be given to them. The reason for this is that the provisions we receive under normal conditions are routed through a veil of cause and effect, while the demand of the believers involved the removal of that veil. This is again the way of God, because if this veil is removed, the very purpose of test will be defeated.

The fact is that crops flourishing in the fields, or the emergence of a tree, stout and green, from beneath the earth are all as miraculous events as the descent to us of a platter containing food from the midst of the clouds. But the miraculous nature of these events is not apparent to us because they appear from behind a veil. It is the test of man that he should be able to see the reality by tearing down that veil. He should be able to look upon the basic elements of foodstuffs emerging from the earth as if they were descending from heaven. If a person insists that he will accept the Divine Truth only on ‘seeing’ it, then he is saying, as it were, that he will receive God’s grace without undergoing His trial, and that is not possible according to the way of God.

When the Day of Judgement arrives, man will come to know without being told what is right and what is wrong. People will witness with their own eyes that all powers are with the one and only God. He has no partner in being our Creator and Lord. No one but Him has any powers and there is no one except Him who deserves to be worshipped and obeyed. Under these circumstances, when God asks His prophets with what message they were sent to the world, then it will amount to asking about something which would have already become known to the people. The answer to this question will be so clear at that time that, without anybody’s saying anything, the whole atmosphere of the Judgement Day will have been shouting it out. This question and answer will serve only to increase the abasement of the people being judged by God. It will be for the purpose of clarifying in the presence of the prophets that the religion concocted by them in the name of prophets was not at all connected with their teachings.

This world has been created for the sake of putting man to the test. Therefore, everybody has freedom here. Here man may prosper even after linking with God and his prophet a religion which is not connected with God and His prophet. Here, even on the strength of imaginary hopes and false wishes, the right to paradise can be claimed. Here, it is possible for a man to create a great fanfare about his leadership and to ‘prove’ that whatever he does is exactly according to the religion of God. But, no such thing will be useful on the Day of Judgement. What will be useful on the Day of Judgment will be that man should prove truthful in the eyes of God. The test of the community bearing the Divine Scripture is not whether they are the claimants of faith or not. Their real test is a demonstration of their ability to prove their claim to Faith.