" It is not righteousness that you should enter dwellings from their backs.

" It is not righteousness that you should enter dwellings from their backs..." In this verse the statement is partly about the Hajj Pilgrimage which can be performed at its proper time by visual noting the crescent of the Moon. It has also pointed to one of the superstitious customs of the Age of Ignorance accomplished in the rites of pilgrimage which Allah prohibited them from.

It was the practice among Arabs that after getting into the pilgrim garment ('Ihram) they considered it unlawful to enter their house through the usual doors. Hence they cut a new entrance under the ground from behind their premises. They did so because they thought it was a good action since it was a desuetude of habit and, therefore, they would complete the act of the pilgrim garment which was a desuetude of habits.

(1) But the Qur'an explicitly says that righteousness lies in piety, not in the superstitious customs. So, it immediately tells them seriously to enter their houses from the very ordinary doors. But the object and the significance of the revelation of this verse is reasonably wider, greater, and more common. For the fulfilment of any action, whether it is a ritual action or a non-religious one, we should (1) Tafsir-Baydawi, vol. 1, p.

40 113 enter it through its proper way, not from a deviated path. Here, entering from behind is a figurative expression for turning aside from the right course, and entering by the door means sticking to the right path. This meaning is narrated from Imam Baqir (a.s.) by Jabir, one of his companions. (1) In the commentaries from Ahlul-Bayt (a.s.) it is narrated about this verse that they have said: " We are the doors and the ways of Allah that invite unto (His) Heaven...".

(2) his tradition means that in your total religious affairs you should arrive by the main door and take your agenda from them (a.s.) whom are trained in the school of revelation and the Divine Messages were revealed in their house, (Ahlul-Bayt) .

The phrase: " It is not righteousness..." may point to another narrow meaning saying that your question about the crescent, instead of inquiring about theology, is like the manner of the one who has put the main and right path of the house aside and enters it through a burrow from behind the premise. What a disgraceful manner! (1) Majma'-ul-Bayan, vol. 2, p.