THE KORAN WITHOUT THE EXEGETES

In the course of a call for unity among the believers, God addresses them as follows: ‘Let there be one community of you (wa-l-takun minkum ummatun), calling to good, and commanding right and forbidding wrong (wa-ya' murūna bi'l-ma ‘rūfi wa-yanhawna ‘ani ’ l-munkar); those are the prosperers’ (Q3:104). This conjunction of ‘commanding right’ and ‘forbidding wrong’ is found in seven further Koranic verses (Q3:110, Q3:114, Q7:157, Q9:71, Q9:112, Q22:41, Q31:17); the two phrases scarcely appear in isolation from each other. It is clear, then, that the phrase ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ is firmly rooted in Koranic diction. But what, on the basis of the Koranic material, can we say about the actual character of the duty? Who performs it, who is its target, and what is it about?

It is reasonably clear who performs it in Q3:104. The context of the verse is an appeal for the unity of the community of believers, with contrasting reference to earlier communities; the believers, according to this verse, are to be (or at least include) a community (umma) which commands right and forbids wrong. Some of the other passages referring to the duty invite a similar interpretation (Q3:110, Q3:114, Q9:71); in other words, the obligation seems here to be one discharged by the collectivity of the believers. There are, however, two verses (Q9:112 and Q22:41) where thecontext suggests that those who perform the duty are the believers whoengage in holy war(and therefore not all believers). The first is syntactically problematic; but the believers have been mentioned in the previous verse for their commitment to holy war.