The Quran

189

۞ يَسأَلونَكَ عَنِ الأَهِلَّةِ ۖ قُل هِيَ مَواقيتُ لِلنّاسِ وَالحَجِّ ۗ وَلَيسَ البِرُّ بِأَن تَأتُوا البُيوتَ مِن ظُهورِها وَلٰكِنَّ البِرَّ مَنِ اتَّقىٰ ۗ وَأتُوا البُيوتَ مِن أَبوابِها ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُم تُفلِحونَ

Muhammad Asad

THEY WILL ASK thee about the new moons. Say: "They indicate the periods for [various doings of] mankind, including the pilgrimage."¹ 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.² Hence, enter houses through their doors, and remain conscious of God, so that you might attain to a happy state.

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 Ramadan, 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 surah).
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", that is, through God-consciousness. Since, metonymically, the word bab ("door") signifies "a means of access to, or of attainment of, a thing" (see Lane I, 272), the metaphor of "entering a house through its door" is often used in classical Arabic to denote a proper approach to a problem (Razi).