Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)
then, you may lie with them skin to skin, and avail yourselves of that which God has ordained for you,160 and eat and drink until you can discern the white streak of dawn against the blackness of night,161 and then resume fasting until nightfall; but do not lie with them skin to skin when you are about to abide in meditation in houses of worship.162
These are the bounds set by God: do not, then, offend against them – [for] it is thus that God makes clear His messages unto mankind, so that they might remain conscious of Him.
(188) And devour not one another’s possessions wrongfully, and neither employ legal artifices 163 with a view to devouring sinfully, and knowingly, anything that by right belongs to others.164
(189) They will ask thee about the new moons. Say: “They indicate the periods for [various doings of] mankind, including the pilgrimage.”165
However, piety does not consist in your entering houses from the rear, [as it were,] but truly pious is he who is conscious of God.166 Hence, enter houses
160 Lit., “and seek that which God has ordained for you”: an obvious stress on the God-willed nature of sexual life.
161 Lit., “the white line of dawn from the black line [of night]”. According to all Arab philologists, the “black line” (al-khayṭ al-aswad) signifies “the blackness of night” (Lane II, 831); and the expression al-khayṭān (“the two lines” or “streaks”) denotes “day and night” (Lisān al-ʿArab).
162 It was the practice of the Prophet to spend several days and nights during Ramaḍān – and occasionally also at other times – in the mosque, devoting himself to prayer and meditation to the exclusion of all worldly activities; and since he advised his followers as well to do this from time to time, seclusion in a mosque for the sake of meditation, called iʿtikāf, has become a recognized – though optional – mode of devotion among Muslims, especially during the last ten days of Ramaḍān.
163 Lit., “and do not throw it to the judges” – i.e., with a view to being decided by them contrary to what is right (Zamakhsharī, Bayḍāwī).
164 Lit., “a part of [other] people’s possessions”.
165 The reference, at this stage, to lunar months arises from the fact that the observance of several of the religious obligations instituted by Islam – like the fast of Ramaḍān, or the pilgrimage to Mecca (which is dealt with in verses 196–203) – is based on the lunar calendar, in which the months rotate through the seasons of the solar year. This fixation on the lunar calendar results in a continuous variation of the seasonal circumstances in which those religious observances are performed (e.g., the length of the fasting-period between dawn and sunset, heat or cold at the time of the fast or the pilgrimage), and thus in a corresponding, periodical increase or decrease of the hardship involved. In addition to this, reckoning by lunar months has a bearing on the tide and ebb of the oceans, as well as on human physiology (e.g., a woman’s monthly courses – a subject dealt with later on in this sūrah).
166 I.e., true piety does not consist in approaching questions of faith through a “back door”, as it were – that is, through mere observance of the forms and periods set for the performance of various religious duties (cf. 2:177). However important these forms and time-limits may be in themselves, they do not fulfil their real purpose unless every act is approached through its spiritual “front door”,
