3:96

Salaam all,

This is 3:96
إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَهُدًى لِّلْعَالَمِينَ
Inna awwala baytin wudiAAa lilnnasi lallathee bibakkata mubarakan wahudan lilAAalameena

The Aya says:
Verily, the first shelter put to the people (is) the one in Bekka, made blessed and guidance to all creation.

My personal note:
This Aya declares which Shelter/home/ house was made first to the people. I chose shelter because I find that closer to the meaning of Bayt than the usual home. Home is correct, but the word BAYT is used for home as a shelter, more than anything else. It gives the feeling of safety.

I also kept the word Bekka as is, since it was the word used in the Qur’an as the name of the place. It is understood as Mecca where the M and the B are being replaceable. The meaning of Bekka is crowded place and that fits with Mecca during pilgrimage whether before Islam or after it.

The purpose of the shelter will come in the next Aya, where it declares it as a place of pilgrimage and worship.

Translation of the transliterated words:
Inna: verily
Awwala: first/ most ultimate
Note: the root is Hamza-W-L and it means ultimate as a concept and takes different shapes and specific meanings according to the situation. AWWALA means more ultimate and that takes the meaning of first because the first is the most ultimate.
Baytin: home/ shelter
Note: the root is B-Y-T and it means to reach the night and BAYT is the place that you spend the night in. It is also used for any structure that can be used for that purpose and for animal dwellings. Therefore BAYT is closer to a shelter as the conceptual meaning and within that meaning falls the home or the house. BAYTIN is home or shelter.
wudiAAa: put/placed
Note: the root is W-Dhad-Ain and it means putting down an entity. The word then takes the meaning according to the context of the sentence and plane of thought. WUDiAAa is an action that is completed. It means: the action of putting down/placing the object (Baytin= home or shelter) was completed by an undeclared subject.
Lilnnasi: to the people/ to the society
Note: LI means to. ALNNASI is derived from the root the root is Hamza-N-S and it means socializing. ALNNASI are the society or the people.
Lallathee: that which (with stress)
Bibakkata: in Mecca/ in Bekka/ in the crowded place
Note: Bi suggests that what comes after it is either an association with the action, a tool of the action or an object of the action or any combination of the three. In this case the BI is not associated with an action and therefore takes the meaning of in. BAKKATA is a name of a place. Most exegetes understand it to be Mecca, because of the closeness of the words, as well as the Aya that comes after it. The word BAKKA is derived from the root B-K-K and it means crowded or crowding. The relationship to Mecca is that it is a place that becomes crowded in the season of pilgrimage. In pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabs saw the biggest crowds at the time of the pilgrimage.
Mubarakan: made blessed
Note: the root is B-R-K and it means in concrete when the water is on the ground in a pool, or when the camel is sitting on the ground with his chest touching it. The word is also used in Arabic and Hebrew to mean blessing with all the potential meanings that come with blessing. MUBARAKAN means made blessed.
Wahudan: and guidance/ including guidance
Note: WA is a letter that links what is before with what is after through inclusion, either including one in the other or both in a bigger picture. HUDAN is derived from the root H-D-Y and it means gift in all it’s forms and it carries the meaning of guidance since guidance is a gift. HUDAN means guidance and it could mean gift as well.
lilAAalameena: to all/ to the worlds/ to all humanity
Note: Li means to. LAAaLAMEEN is derived from the root is Ain-L-M and it means knowledge or knowing. ALAAaLAMEENA means the known or the knowns. Since, it is talking about God, who knows everything, then it is pointing to all creation as in everything everywhere and anywhere and so forth. There is a possibility that it is talking about humanity mainly, even though it can be more encompassing than that.

Salaam all and have a great day.


Hussein