1-2. As-Safa (الصفا) and Al-Marwa (المروة)
As-Safa and Al-Marwa are two hills in Mecca, close to the Kaaba. The greater pilgrimage, or Hajj, held once a year in the twelfth month of the Hegirian calendar, includes a rite called the Sa’i (سعي), consisting of seven courses between the two hills. The rite commemorates God’s blessing upon Hajar and her son Ismaël, first-born of Abraham, peace be with them and with their descendants. God caused a spring to gush forth to give them drink, and saved them from death.
It also commemorates the sacrifice of Ismaël by his father Abraham: God had announced to him a son from among the virtuous; then, once the son had accomplished the Sa’i with him, Abraham told him he had seen in a dream that he was offering him up, and asked him what he thought of it. The son urged him to do as he was commanded, and declared that his father would find him, if God so willed, among those who endure. When both had submitted, and Abraham had laid him down upon his brow, God called to him and told him that he had held the vision to be true — a manifestly painful trial — and ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice (37.100-107).
3. Bakka (بكة)
Bakka is a Qur’anic name for Mecca, designating the place where the Kaaba stands, “the first house established for humankind” (3.96). The city bears several other names in Islamic tradition, among them Tuhama (تهامة) — which may either evoke the stifling heat and stagnant air characteristic of that coastal region, or more simply designate the “low lands”, as opposed to the Najd, the high inland plateau of Arabia — and above all Umm al-Qura (أم القرى), “the mother of cities”, the most usual name, found twice in the Qur’an, at verses 6.92 and 42.7. The Prophet himself is designated in the Qur’an as النبي الأمي (an-Nabî al-Ummî), at verses 7.157 and 7.158, the sense of which is clearly “Prophet of the mother of cities”, contrary to the most widespread tradition, which would have the Prophet pass for an “illiterate”. This is an insidious and venomous way of insulting the most beautiful and most accomplished of God’s creatures.
4. Badr (بدر)
Badr is the name of a place between Mecca and Medina, where on 17 Ramadan of the year 2 of the Hegira — 13 March 624 in the Julian calendar, 17 March in the Gregorian — the first great battle was fought by the nascent community of Medina against the army of Mecca. Some three hundred Muslim combatants, under the command of the Prophet himself, faced a Meccan army three times their number, and came out victorious. The Recitation mentions it as a help that God brought to those who stood firm at the Prophet’s side.
5-8. Bahîrah (بحيرة), Sâîbah (سائبة), Wasîlah (وصيلة) and Hâm (حام)
According to several traditions reported by commentators, some going back to Companions of the Prophet, these are four categories of livestock consecrated to the idols, following customs current in pre-Qur’anic Arabia. The details vary from one tradition to another, but converge on the principle: the Bahîrah, a she-camel whose milk was reserved for the idols; the Sâîbah, a she-camel left free of all use in honour of the idols; the Wasîlah, a female consecrated to the idols according to certain conditions of calving; and the Hâm, a male released from all work after a given number of coverings. The verse rejects these practices: they are human inventions, not divine prescriptions. [Source: Mufti Muhammad Shafi, Ma’ariful Qur’an, translation supervised by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Maktaba Darul-Uloom, Karachi, 2004]
9. Madian (مدين)
Madian designates both a people and the territory they inhabited, to which the prophet Chuaïb (Jethro) was sent. The term appears in the form “Madianites” in four verses, and in the form “Madian”, alone or in the phrase “the people of Madian”, in six others.
Madianite territory is sometimes placed in present-day Jordan, chiefly on two grounds: Moses’ stay in Madian, reported by the Qur’an and by the Bible after his flight from Egypt. The second is verse 11.89, where Chuaïb tells his people that “the people of Lot are not far off” from them, which implies geographical proximity between Madian and the land of Lot, traditionally situated near the Dead Sea. This reading is a minority one, which does not make it false. The most commonly accepted location, supported by archaeological excavation as research currently stands, places Madian in the oasis of al-Bad’, in the north-west of present-day Saudi Arabia, not far from the Gulf of Aqaba — it being understood that archaeology, like many another discipline, remains dependent on the political and international climate of the moment.
10. Ḥunaïn (حنين)
Ḥunaïn is a valley between Mecca and Ta’if, where in the year 8 of the Hegira — January 630, shortly after the conquest of Mecca — a battle was fought between the Muslims, for the first time twelve thousand strong, and a coalition of bedouin tribes led by the Hawazin and the Thaqif, themselves outnumbered. Despite their superior numbers, the Muslims saw the opening of the engagement turn against them: an ambush routed them and put the Prophet’s life in danger, before a rally reversed the course of the battle in their favour. The verse points to a lesson addressed to the Muslims, whose excessive confidence in their own numbers had left them vulnerable. [Source: Tarikh at-Tabari, Arabic text] [Source: at-Tabari (trans. Ismail K. Poonawala), The History of al-Tabari, Volume IX: The Last Years of the Prophet, State University of New York Press, 1990]
11. The postponement (An-Nasî’, النسيء)
This was a practice of the pre-Islamic lunar calendar, consisting in artificially shifting the sacred character of one month onto another — generally in order to free the month of Muharram from its prohibition on fighting, while apparently preserving the number of four sacred months in the year. The office was hereditary, held by a line of the tribe of Kinâna under the title of al-Qalammas; the last to exercise it was Abou Thumâma Junâda ibn ’Awf. Each year, at the close of the pilgrimage, the Qalammas publicly announced at ’Arafât the postponement decided for the year to come [Mahmûd Pacha al-Falakî, Natâ’ij al-Afhâm fî Taqwîm al-’Arab qabla al-Islâm, trans. Ahmad Zakî Effendi, 1305 H].
12. Judi (الجودي)
A mountain in the south-east of present-day Turkey, near the town of Cizre, on the Tigris, where Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood, according to the Qur’an. This location is not peculiar to Muslim scholars: the ancient Syriac and Armenian traditions designated the same place, before medieval Christian tradition came to prefer Mount Ararat, some 500 kilometres away by road, to the north-east, today the site most often retained by biblical tradition. [Source: Gabriel Said Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian in a Sectarian Milieu: ’Abd al-Jabbar and the Critique of Christian Origins, Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 56, Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2004] [Source: al-Mas’udi, Les Prairies d’or, trans. C. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, vol. 1, Imprimerie impériale, Paris, 1861, p. 74]
13. Al-Aïka (الأيكة)
On this subject as on many others, we have no certainty: the clarifications the Prophet might have given have not reached us, for want of preservation or of reliable transmission. We are therefore obliged to set out several divergent and contradictory opinions, which do not allow the matter to be settled.
Al-Aïka, “the Thicket”, is said to designate a stand of interlaced trees that this people took as an object of worship. According to many commentators — Ibn Kathîr and al-Qurtubî on the Sunni side, at-Tabâtabâ’î in al-Mîzân on the Shia side — this would be the same people as that of Madian, to whom Chuaïb was likewise sent; the two designations would then refer to one and the same people, named differently according to the grievance brought forward in each passage [Ibn Kathîr, Tafsîr al-Qur’ân al-’Azîm; al-Qurtubî, al-Jâmi’ li-Ahkâm al-Qur’ân, vol. 13, pp. 134-135; at-Tabâtabâ’î, al-Mîzân]. Qatâda and ’Ikrima, two exegetes of the generation following the Companions, are reported to have seen in them two distinct peoples instead [reported by at-Tabarî, Târikh, vol. 1, p. 327], arguing that a single prophet sent twice, under two different names, to one and the same people would be hard to justify.
On the location itself, opinions diverge just as much, and more widely still. Madianite territory would, on the most widespread reading, supported by archaeological excavation, lie in the oasis of al-Bad’, in the north-west of present-day Saudi Arabia — it being understood that archaeology, like many another discipline, remains dependent on the political and international climate of the moment. Another, minority reading places it further north, in present-day Jordan. As for Al-Aïka, some traditions extend its territory from the Red Sea as far as Madian itself; another reports that Chuaïb and his people took refuge at Ayla — present-day Aqaba — at the moment of the punishment, which is said to have fallen upon that people over seven consecutive days [at-Tabarsî, Majma’ al-Bayân, vol. 6, p. 528]; yet another places Al-Aïka in the region of Tabûk [al-Istakhrî, al-Masâlik wa al-Mamâlik].
14. Al-Hijr (الحجر)
Al-Hijr, “the rock”, is a site in the region of al-’Ulâ, in the north-west of present-day Saudi Arabia, known in antiquity as Hegra and today as Madâ’in Sâlih, “the cities of Sâlih”. Commentators, Sunni and Shia alike, identify it without disagreement as the territory of the Thamûd, the people to whom the prophet Sâlih was sent [Ibn Kathîr, Tafsîr al-Qur’ân al-’Azîm; at-Tabâtabâ’î, al-Mîzân]. The site, the second Nabataean settlement in importance after Petra, preserves more than a hundred monumental tombs cut into the rock, dated for the most part to the first centuries before and after our era. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008.
15. al-Raqim (الرقيم)
The exact sense of this name remains disputed among the commentators. According to the opinions reported by Ibn Kathîr, it would be either an engraved tablet bearing the names of the people of the cave and placed at the entrance to their grotto [Sa’îd ibn Jubayr], or the name of the mountain that sheltered it [Ibn Jurayj]. At-Tabari, in his own tafsir, decides in favour of the first sense on linguistic grounds: “al-Raqim” would be built as a passive participle, literally “the inscribed”. Most exegetes, Sunni and Shia alike, hold that the “people of al-Raqim” designates the people of the cave themselves, under another name. A tradition reported by ash-Shaykh as-Sadûq [source: WikiShia, article “Companions of al-Raqim”, precise work not identified with certainty] identifies them, however, as three distinct men, taking refuge in a grotto that the rain is said to have sealed with a rock, and from which they emerged only after each had called upon God in the name of a good deed from his past life. This is a narrative found in similar form in the Sunni tradition as well, without being particularly attached there to the account of the people of the cave. Once again, we do not know what the Prophet said of it.
Two locations contend today for the site of the grotto. The first is at ar-Rajib, a village east of Amman in Jordan, where a grotto was brought to light by excavation in 1963; its present name is said by some to be a corruption of “al-Raqim”. The second, retained by a hadith attributed to the Prince of the faithful ’Alî and favoured by at-Tabâtabâ’î himself [WikiShia, article “Seven Sleepers”], is at Ephesus, in present-day Turkey. Other, more scattered sites have also been proposed over time, without any consensus ever being reached.
16. Tuwa (طوى)
This is the sacred valley where God addressed Moses for the first time, as he returned from Madian towards Egypt, and commanded him to remove his sandals in token of respect for the place. Commentators mostly situate it at the foot of Mount Sinai.
The word itself remains disputed. It comes from the root t-w-y, meaning “to fold”. Most Qur’anic readers pronounce it as an invariable proper noun, the very name of the valley; a minority pronounce it as a simple adjective meaning “folded”, which has given rise to two distinct readings: Ibn ’Abbâs, cited by at-Tabari, sees in it an allusion to Moses having crossed this valley by night; another reading, frequently cited in the classical dictionaries, sees in it “that which was sanctified twice”, as though the holiness of the place had been doubled.
The biblical account in Exodus (3, 1-5) reports the same episode: Moses, keeping the flock of Jethro (Chuaïb) in Madian, comes to Horeb, “the mountain of God”, where he sees a burning bush that burns without being consumed; God calls to him there and commands him, in the same terms, to remove his sandals, “for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground”. The name “Tuwa” itself has no equivalent in the biblical text.
17. Al-Budna (البدن)
This is the name given to the animal offered in sacrifice during the pilgrimage, which takes place on the tenth day of the twelfth month of the Hegirian year, in commemoration of Abraham’s sacrifice evoked at note 1-2 — camel or bovine according to most of the early commentators, restricted to camels alone according to Mujâhid. A hadith reported by Jâbir ibn ’Abdullah, in Muslim, specifies that a camel or a cow may be shared between seven persons for the sacrificial offering. The word of the verse rendered as “bound”, sawâffa, describes a precise posture — the beast standing on three legs, the left foreleg raised and bound. From this the jurists draw the distinction still observed today between the camel, slaughtered standing by a blow to the base of the neck, and the other sacrificial beasts, which are slaughtered lying on their side.
18. Rass (الرس)
“Rass” means “well” in Arabic. Beyond the sense of the word, we know nothing of this people. The traditional commentators report about them only unverifiable narratives, which never go back to the Prophet himself — now a people said to have thrown its prophet into a well after falling into idolatry, now a people placed in Azerbaijan, now another placed at Falaj, in the Yamâma.
19. Yathrib (يثرب)
This is the name of Medina before the Hegira, used here by hypocrites at the time of the battle of the Trench (al-Khandaq, الخندق), in the year 5, to induce some to desert — this is the only occurrence of the name in the Qur’an. According to a tradition reported by as-Suhaylî and cited in al-Fayyûmî’s al-Misbâh al-Munîr, under the root ث ر ب, Yathrib was the name of an Amalekite man said to have founded the city and given it his own name. The city was subsequently designated by other names, among them Madîna an-Nabî, “the City of the Prophet”, and Tayba, “the Good”.
20-22. Al-Lat (اللات), Al-’Uzza (العزى) and Manat (مناة)
These were the three great female divinities of pre-Islamic Arabia, whom the polytheists regarded as the “daughters” of God. Al-Lat, an engraved white stone housed in a building at Ta’if, was venerated by the tribe of Thaqîf. Al-’Uzza, the most revered by the Quraysh, was embodied according to tradition in three trees at Nakhla. Manat, held to be the oldest of the three, goddess of destiny, had her idol at al-Mushallal, near Qudayd, and was venerated above all by the Medinan tribes of the Aws and the Khazraj. The three sanctuaries were destroyed after the conquest of Mecca.
23-27. Wadd (ود), Suwa’ (سواع), Yaghûth (يغوث), Ya’ûq (يعوق) and Nasr (نسر)
These were five antediluvian idols worshipped by the people of Noah, named in this verse as those his contemporaries refused to abandon despite his call, he who lived nine hundred and fifty years among his people. We know nothing further about these divinities, nor about the nature of their cult, since no word of the Prophet on the subject has reached us and all the sources consulted report only scattered stories that cannot be cross-checked.
28. Iram (إرم)
Iram, “of the remarkable pillars”, was the city of the people of ’Ad, cited as an example of greatness swallowed up for pride and for the rejection of faith. The text names this people together with the Thamûd (note 14) and the people of the Rass (note 18) among those who were destroyed. Archaeologically, a widely publicised identification with the site of Shisr, in Oman, under the name of Ubar, was proposed in 1992 and then abandoned by its own author, having failed to win acceptance among specialists. A more recent line of enquiry places Iram rather in the region of Wadi Ram, in present-day Jordan, where inscriptions mention this name alongside that of the ’Ad.