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But He will call you To account for your deliberate Oaths: for expiation, feed Ten indigent persons, On a scale of the average For the food of your families; Or clothe them; or give A slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, Fast for three days. That is the expiation For the oaths ye have sworn. But keep to your oaths. Thus doth Allah make clear To you His Signs, that ye May be grateful. 90. 0 ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling,793 Sacrificing to stones, J9.l And (divination by) arrows,7lJ5 Are an abomination,Of Satan's handiwork: Eschew such (abomination), That ye may prosper. 91. Satan's plan is (but) To excite enmity and hatred Between you, with intoxicants And gambling, and hinder you
793. Cf. ii. 219. and notes 240 and 241. 794. Cf. v. 3. The stones there referred to were stone altars or stone columns on which oil was poured for consecration. or slabs on which meat was sacrificed to idols. Any idolatrous or superstitious practices are here condemned. The anslib were objects of worship. and were common in Arabia before Islam. See Renan, "History of Israel". Chapter iv, and Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. Pan I. p. 154: Illustrations Nos. 123 and 123 his are Phoenician columns of that kind, found in Malta. 795. Cf. v. 3. The arrows there referred to were used for the division of meat by a son of lottery or raffle. But arrows were also used for divination. i.e., for ascenaining lucky or unlucky moments, or learning the wishes of the heathen gods, as to whether men should undertake cenain actions or not. All superstitions are condemned.
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