There is no restriction on the blind, or the disabled, or the sick.17 Nor on yourselves if you eat from your homes,17 or the homes of your fathers, or your mothers, or your brothers, or your sisters, or your paternal uncles, or your paternal aunts, or your maternal uncles, or your maternal aunts, or from the homes in your trust, or ˹the homes of˺ your friends. There is no blame on you eating together or separately. However, when you enter houses, greet one another with a greeting ˹of peace˺ from Allah, blessed and good.17 This is how Allah makes His revelations clear to you, so perhaps you will understand.
It is no fault in the blind nor in one born lame, nor in one afflicted with illness, 3042 nor in yourselves, that you should eat in your own houses, or those of your fathers, or your mothers, or your brothers, or your sisters, or your father´s brothers or your father´s sisters, or your mohter´s brothers, or your mother´s sisters, or in houses of which the keys are in your possession, or in the house of a sincere friend of yours: there is no blame on you, whether you eat in company or separately. But if you enter houses, salute each other - a greeting of blessing and purity as from Allah, 3043 thus does Allah make clear the signs to you: that you may understand. 3044
3042 There were various Arab superstitions and fancies which are combated and rejected here. (1) The blind, or the halt, or those afflicted with serious disease were supposed to be objects of divine displeasure, and as such not fit to be associated with us in meals in our houses: we are not to entertain such a thought, as we are not judges of the causes of people's misfortunes, which deserve our sympathy and kindness. (2) It was considered unbecoming to take meals in the houses of near relatives: this taboo is not approved. (3) A simple superstition about houses in our possession but not in our actual occupation is disapproved. (4) If people think they should not fall under obligation to casual friends, that does not apply to a sincere friend, in whose company a meal is not to be rejected, but welcomed. (5) If people make a superstition either that they should always eat separately, or that they must always eat in company, as some people weary of their own company think, either of them is wrong. Man is free and should regulate his life according to needs and circumstances. (R).
3043 The shades of meaning in Salam are explained in n. 2512 to 19:62. Here, we were first told that we might accept hospitality and good fellowship in each odier's houses. Now we are told what spirit should animate us in doing so. It should not be a spirit only of self-satisfaction in a worldly sense. It should rather be a spirit of good will in the highest spiritual sense of the term-purity of motives and purity of life, as in the sight of Allah. Cf. Dante in the Paradiso (iii. 85): "In His will is our Peace."
3044 See notes 3039 and 3041 above. The refrain comes again, in a different form, closing the argument from a different point of view.
[ALL OF YOU, O believers, are brethren: hence.] 85 no blame attaches to the blind, nor does blame attach to the lame, nor does blame attach to the sick [for accepting charity from the hale], and neither to yourselves for eating [whatever is offered to you by others, whether it be food obtained] from your [children’s] houses, 86 or your fathers’ houses, or your mothers’ houses, or your brothers’ houses, or your sisters’ houses, or your paternal uncles’ houses, or your paternal aunts’ houses, or your maternal uncles’ houses, or your maternal aunts’ houses, or [houses] the keys whereof are in your charge! 87 or [the house] of any of your friends; nor will you incur any sin by eating in company or separately. But whenever you enter [any of these] houses, greet one another with a blessed, goodly greeting, as enjoined by God. In this way God makes clear unto you His messages, so that you might [learn to] use your reason.
85 The whole of verse 61 is construed in so highly elliptic a form that disagreements as to its purport have always been unavoidable. However, if all the explanations offered by the early commentators are taken into consideration, we find that their common denominator is the view that the innermost purport of this passage is a stress on the brotherhood of all believers, expressed in a call to mutual charity, compassion and good-fellowship and, hence, the avoidance of all unnecessary formalities in their mutual relations.
86 In the consensus of all the authorities, the expression "your houses" implies in this context also "your children’s houses", since all that belongs to a person maybe said to belong, morally, to his parents as well.
87 I.e., "for which you are responsible".
17 There is no blame on any of the three if they do not march forth in Allah’s cause. Moreover, some Muslims would give the keys of their homes to one of those who could not march forth (namely the blind, the disabled, or the sick) or their own relatives and ask them to enter their houses and eat at will but these people were shy to do that.