If it is objected: “One group has said that the verse means, ‘They only practised it in pursuit of Allah’s good pleasure – We did not prescribe it for them except in pursuit of Allah’s good pleasure,’ while another group has said, ‘They only carried it out, or only invented it, in pursuit of Allah’s good pleasure,’” the reply is that both explanations are wrong, and the first is more patently so. Allah never prescribed monasticism for them; He did not legislate it for them, neither as an obligation nor even as a recommended act. Some interpreters claimed that once they had innovated it Allah then obligated them to complete it, but there is nothing in the verse that points to such a claim.

Allah says:

“We did not prescribe it for them—except the seeking of Allah’s pleasure—yet they did not observe it as it ought to have been observed.” [57:27]

He does not state that He ordained the monasticism itself for them, or that He made its completion or observance binding upon them; rather, He informs us that they introduced an innovation, and that they failed to observe that innovation properly.

If it is further asked, “Do His words, ‘yet they did not observe it as it ought to have been observed,’ imply that they would have been praised had they observed it correctly?” the answer is that nothing in the wording conveys this. What the wording does indicate is that, in addition to their failure to observe it, they incur a blame more severe than the blame that would have attached to them without that failure. Hence the censure of one who invents an innovation and then neglects it is greater than the censure of one who observes it—although neither party is praiseworthy; both are blameworthy, as with the Christian tribe of Banū Taghlib.