making them helpers to one another. Then the Exalted One said: “And do not cooperate in sin and aggression.”

Sin and aggression, on the side of prohibition, correspond to righteousness (1) and God-consciousness on the side of command. The difference between sin and aggression is greater than that between what is unlawful in kind and what is unlawful in quantity (2).

Sin is that which is forbidden in its very essence, whereas aggression is the prohibition of excess in its amount—overstepping what Allah has permitted (3). Thus adultery, drinking wine, theft, and the like are sins; while marrying a fifth wife, or an injured party taking more than his due, and similar acts are aggression.

Aggression is the transgression of the limits set by Allah (4), about which He said: “These are the limits set by Allah, so do not transgress them; for whoever transgresses the limits set by Allah—it is they who are the wrongdoers” (2:229). (5) And in another place He said: “These are the limits set by Allah, so do not approach them” (6). Hence He forbade their transgression in one verse and forbade coming near them in another, because His limits—glorified is He—are the decisive boundaries