His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿There is no blame upon the blind, nor upon the lame, nor upon the sick, nor upon yourselves that you eat from your houses or the houses of your fathers or the houses of your mothers or the houses of your brothers or the houses of your sisters or the houses of your uncles or the houses of your aunts or the houses of your maternal uncles or the houses of your maternal aunts, or what your keys possess, or your friend. There is no sin upon you whether you eat together or separately. And when you enter houses, greet yourselves with a greeting from Allah, blessed and good. Thus Allah makes clear the verses to you that you may understand.﴾

The people have differed regarding the meaning by which Allah has lifted the blame from the three categories. The apparent meaning of the verse and the command of the Shari'ah is that the blame is lifted from them in all that necessity compels them to. Their intention should be to perform it in the best manner, and the necessity may lead to them doing less than that. Therefore, the blame is lifted from them in this. As for what people have said about the blame here, Ibn Zayd said: It is the blame in warfare, meaning: there is no blame upon them for their delay. And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿nor upon yourselves﴾ is a meaning disconnected from the first. A group said: The entire verse is about food. They said: The Arabs and those in Medina before the Prophethood used to avoid eating with those who have excuses. Some of them would do this out of disgust for the movement of the hand of the blind, and for the spreading of the sitting of the lame, and for the smell of the sick and their ailments. These are ignorant and arrogant traits. Thus the verse was revealed as a form of etiquette. Some of them would do this out of scruples from those who do not have excuses, as they are limited in eating compared to the healthy, due to the lack of sight in the blind, and the inability to compete in the lame, and the weakness of the sick. Thus the verse was revealed permitting eating with them. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said in the book of Al-Zahrawi: If those with these excuses were scrupulous about eating with people due to their excuses, the verse was revealed permitting them.

Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, also said: The verse from the beginning to the end was revealed because when the verse was revealed: ﴿And do not consume one another's wealth unjustly﴾ [Al-Baqarah: 188], they said: There is no wealth more precious than food, and they were scrupulous about someone eating with these people lest he deceive them in food and fall into consuming wealth unjustly. Likewise, they were scrupulous about eating the food of relatives for this reason. Thus the verse was revealed permitting all of these foods and clarifying that those are only in transgression, gambling, and all that a person consumes from the wealth of others while the other dislikes it, or in a corrupt manner and the like.

And Abid Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn Atabah ibn Mas'ud said: His saying regarding the three categories was revealed because the people would, when they set out for warfare, leave those with excuses in their homes and their wealth. The people with excuses would avoid eating the wealth of the absent. Thus the verse was revealed permitting them to eat what they need from the food of the absent if the absent has built upon that.

It was said: When a man would bring the people of excuse to his house and find nothing in it, he would take them to the house of his relatives. The people of excuses were hesitant about that, so the verse was revealed.

And Allah, the Exalted, mentioned the houses of relatives, and the houses of sons were excluded from it. The interpreters said: That is included in His saying, ﴿from your houses﴾; because the house of a man's son is his house. And Talhah ibn Musarif read "your mothers" with a broken hamzah.

And His saying, ﴿or what you possess of its keys﴾ means what you have acquired and has come under your control. He magnified what a man possesses in his house and under its lock. This is the interpretation of al-Dhahhak and Mujahid. According to the majority of the interpreters, the agents, slaves, and hired workers are included in the verse by common understanding. The majority of the people read: "you possess" with a fatha on the mim and the lam. Sa'id ibn Jubair read: "you have made possess" with a dammah on the mim and a kasrah on the lam, and it was emphasized. The majority of the people read: "its keys," and Sa'id ibn Jubair read: "its keys" with a ya between the ta and the ha, the first on the plural of miftah, and the second on the plural of miftah. Qatadah read: "you possess its keys." And the Exalted combined in this verse the friend with the close kinship; because the closeness of affection is intimate. Al-Mu'mar said: I said to Qatadah: Should I not drink from this well? He said: You are my friend, so what is this seeking permission? Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said in the book of al-Naqash: The friend is more confirmed than kinship. Do you not see in the plea of the people of Hell: ﴿So we have no intercessors﴾ [Ash-Shu'ara: 100] ﴿and no close friend﴾ [Ash-Shu'ara: 101].

And His saying, ﴿There is no sin upon you that you eat together or separately﴾ is a response to the view of a group of Arabs who would not eat individually at all. This was said by al-Tabari. Among them is the saying of some poets:

If she prepares the food, then seek for it a sharer, for I will not eat it alone.

And some of the Arabs, when they had a guest, would not eat unless they ate with their guest. So this verse was revealed clarifying the Sunnah of eating, abolishing all that contradicts it from the customs of the Arabs, and permitting the eating of the individual, which was prohibited among the Arabs. It inclined towards generosity of character, but it excessively insisted on it. And indeed, bringing a sharer is good, but it should not make individual eating forbidden.

And some of the scholars said: This verse is abrogated by His saying, blessings and peace be upon him: "Indeed, your blood and your wealth are sacred to you," and by His saying, ﴿Do not enter houses other than your own until you seek permission﴾ [An-Nur: 27], and by His saying, blessings and peace be upon him, from the hadith of Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with him: "Let no one milk the sheep of another except with his permission." The hadith.

Then Allah, glorified and exalted is He, concluded the verse by clarifying the Sunnah of greeting in the homes. People differed on which homes He meant. Ibrahim al-Nakha'i said: He meant the mosques. The meaning is: greet those in them from your kind. This is as He said: "Indeed, a Messenger has come to you from among yourselves" [At-Tawbah: 128]. If there is no one in the mosques, then the greeting is for a person to say: 'Peace be upon the Messenger of Allah.' It is said that he should say: 'Peace be upon you,' intending the angels. Then he says: 'Peace be upon us and upon the righteous servants of Allah.' His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "A greeting" is a source, and He described it with blessing because it contains supplication and the seeking of affection from the Muslim upon him. The 'kaf' in His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "Thus" is a 'kaf' of comparison, and "that" refers to these Sunnahs. That is: what He described continues to clarify the verses so that you may understand them and act upon them.

Some people said regarding this verse: Indeed, it is abrogated by the verse of seeking permission that the people were commanded with, which is mentioned at the beginning of the Surah. If permission is restricted, then food is more likely to be restricted. Likewise, a group has imposed abrogation between it and His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "And do not consume one another's wealth unjustly" [Al-Baqarah: 188].

The judge Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: Abrogation cannot be conceived in any of these verses; rather, all of them are definitive. As for His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "And do not consume one another's wealth unjustly" [Al-Baqarah: 188], it refers to transgression, deceit, risk, amusement, gambling, and similar matters. As for this verse, it is about the permissibility of the food of these types, which is made pleasing by the permissibility of their food in this manner. As for the verse of permission, the reason for the obligation of seeking permission is the fear of exposure. When a man seeks permission, he fears exposure and enters the house with the permissible face; it becomes permissible for him thereafter to eat food with this permissibility. There is no abrogation in the verse; so reflect upon it.