Al-Ma’idah  · One Hundred and Twenty Verses

Ta'awwudh · Seeking Refuge

أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

A'udhu billahi min ash-shaytani ar-rajim. I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the accursed.

The Name · Bismillah

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Bismillahi ar-Rahmani ar-Rahim. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

✦

The Surah · In Three Parts

Al-Ma’idah is among the last chapters revealed, and its first word to the believers is about keeping agreements. Fulfil the contracts. A chapter that will spend a hundred and twenty verses on food, oaths, testimony, justice, alliance and the boundaries of a community opens by naming the thing all of that rests on.

It contains verse 3, revealed at Arafat during the farewell pilgrimage, in which the religion is described as complete. And verse 8, which orders justice as a witness and then adds the clause people find hardest: do not let hatred of a people lead you to be unjust. Verse 2 had already said it in the specific case, naming the people who had physically blocked them from the Sacred Mosque.

It carries the account of the two sons of Adam, where the first murder in history is preceded by a sentence from the brother who would not defend himself, and followed by a crow teaching a man how to bury someone.

And it takes its name from verse 112, a table sent down from the sky at the request of the disciples of Isa, peace be upon him, and the closing dialogue in which he is asked whether he told people to take him and his mother as gods, and answers with the most careful sentence a servant has ever spoken.

Three parts, in order.

Part One

Verses 1 to 40

Fulfil the Contracts.

The first word to the believers in one of the last chapters revealed. A grievance named out loud and then refused as a licence. A religion declared complete inside a list of meats. And a brother who would not raise his hand.

آمِين

Prepared with discipline · Ameen