(35) “Their prayer at the House was nothing but whistling and clapping. So taste the punishment for your disbelief.”

This means that Allah established His Sacred House so that His religion might be upheld there and worship devoted sincerely to Him. The believers are the ones who fulfilled this purpose. As for those polytheists who bar people from it, their prayer there—one of the greatest forms of worship—was “nothing but whistling and clapping”; that is, whistling and applauding, as ignorant fools do—people whose hearts contain neither reverence for their Lord, nor knowledge of His rights, nor respect for the best and noblest of places. If this was their prayer there, what must the rest of their worship have been like?

By what right, then, were they more entitled to this House than the believers, who are humble in their prayers and turn away from idle talk, along with all the other praiseworthy qualities and upright deeds by which Allah described them?

Thus, Allah caused the believers to inherit His Sacred House and gave them authority over it. After establishing them there, He said to them: “O you who believe, the polytheists are indeed impure, so let them not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year of theirs.” And here He said: “So taste the punishment for your disbelief.”