22 Preface يَومَ يَرَونَ المَلائِكَةَ لا بُشرىٰ يَومَئِذٍ لِلمُجرِمينَ وَيَقولونَ حِجرًا مَحجورًاAli Quli QaraiThe day when they see the angels, there will be no good news for the guilty that day, and they1 will say, ‘Keep off [from paradise]!’ That is, the angels, who will say this to the faithless. According to another interpretation, during pre-Islamic days, whenever, during one of the holy months in which warfare was prohibited by custom, an Arab felt threatened by someone belonging to a belligerent tribe, he would say, Ḥijran maḥjūrā, thus telling the member of the hostile tribe to keep distance by appealing to the sanctity of the holy month. On this basis, it is the faithless who ask the angels to keep off.