and the like? A person ought to restrain people’s tongues from speaking against him.

His statement, “His fast is obligatory,” consists of a subject and predicate and forms the relative clause of the pronoun “who”; it has no syntactic position. “Who” cannot be conditional here, because it is followed by a nominal sentence. Yet it has an apodosis, for since the relative pronoun resembles the conditional pronoun in its generality, it is given an apodosis like that of a conditional sentence. Here, it is: “he supplicates and departs.” An example is the saying:

“The one who comes to me shall have a dirham.”

“The one” is the subject, while “shall have a dirham” is its predicate. The predicate is introduced with the particle fa- (then), because the relative pronoun resembles the conditional pronoun in its generality and is therefore given the same ruling with respect to the apodosis.

His statement, “he supplicates and departs,” is supported by the Prophet’s words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “If one of you is invited, let him accept. If he is fasting, let him pray; and if he is not fasting, let him eat.” (1) The meaning of “let him pray” is: let him supplicate.

If someone were to say: You maintain that the expressions of the Lawgiver are to be understood according to their legal meanings, and the legal meaning of prayer is the well-known act of worship.

We reply: The meaning of words is determined by their context and the accompanying indications. It is known here that the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not intend that a fasting person who is invited and accepts should perform prayer, for that would have no meaning. Rather, the intended meaning is that he should supplicate for them, as Allah Most High says: “Take from their wealth a charity by which you purify them and increase them thereby