The Verse of Purification: how Sunni and Shia scholars read it

Few verses have been read as closely as this one, and few have been agreed upon in their honour while being disputed in their address. This article settles nothing. It sets out what each school says, so that a reader meets the positions from their own sources rather than from the descriptions of their opponents.

The verse

And abide in your houses and do not display yourselves as [was] the display of the former times of ignorance. And establish prayer and give zakah and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah intends only to remove from you the impurity [of sin], O people of the [Prophet's] household, and to purify you with [extensive] purification.

Read the verse in the mushaf — Al-Ahzab 33

The context, which is the whole question

The verse sits between two passages addressed explicitly to the Prophet's wives. Before it: "O wives of the Prophet, you are not like anyone among women." After it: "And remember what is recited in your houses of the verses of Allah and wisdom."

And in the middle of that address the pronoun changes. The surrounding commands are in the feminine plural — your houses, establish, obey — and then the decisive clause arrives in the masculine plural: remove from you, purify you. English cannot show this; Arabic cannot hide it. Most of the argument rests here.

The reading among Sunni scholars

The commentaries quoted below are in Arabic; the renderings are mine, and the originals sit on this verse's page in Arabic.

In al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, published by the King Fahd Complex — the plainest modern commentary in wide use — the address is read as including both: God's instruction is given to the Prophet's household, "among whom are his wives and his descendants."

The grounds are that the surrounding passage is entirely about the wives, and that "people of the house" ordinarily covers a man's household. As for the shift to the masculine, it is explained as the usual Arabic rule that a group containing men takes masculine agreement — and in that house were the Prophet, Ali and Ali's sons.

This was never a single Sunni position. Some of their commentators restricted the verse to the People of the Cloak alone, some combined the two, and some left it general. Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir set out the range.

The reading among Shia scholars

Tafsir al-Safi of Fayd Kashani transmits from Tafsir al-Qummi that the address to the wives breaks off at this clause and turns to the household, then resumes with the wives in the verse that follows.

Tafsir al-Mizan of Allama Tabataba'i builds on two things. First the restriction carried by innama — "only" — which he takes to confine the intention to removing impurity and purifying, and to confine that removal to those addressed. Second the pronoun: the verse says from you in the masculine, he notes, and does not say it in the feminine. He then lays out the other proposals — that the house meant is the Sacred House, or the Prophet's mosque, or his relatives among the families of Abbas, Aqil, Ja'far and Ali, or the wives alone as was attributed to Ikrima and Urwa — and argues against them.

Points of agreement

• The text of the verse and its place in the surah are not in dispute.
• What God intends in it is the removal of impurity and purification, and that is an honour for whoever is addressed.
• The hadith of the cloak — in which the Prophet gathered Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Husayn under a cloak and said, "O God, these are the people of my house" — is transmitted by both schools, and is in Sahih Muslim on the authority of Aisha.
• The Prophet's wives have their own standing; the dispute is over their inclusion in this verse, not over their honour in general.

Points of difference

• Who is addressed by "from you": the People of the Cloak specifically, or the wives and descendants together?
• What the change of pronoun means: a turn to a different group, or ordinary masculine agreement for a mixed group?
• How strong the restriction in "only" is: does it confine purification to named people, or state the purpose behind the instructions just given?
• What removing impurity amounts to: the godwariness asked of every believer, or something more particular?

Sources

Everything above is drawn from the commentaries themselves as this site serves them:

• Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran.
• Tafsir al-Safi — Mulla Muhsin Fayd Kashani, transmitting Tafsir al-Qummi.
• Tafsir al-Mizan — Allama Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i.

All three are on the page for this verse, each in its own words and under its author's name. Read them and judge for yourself.