houses out of earth is customary, so the blessing becomes apparent through its benefit. Livestock are different: the guidance to make dwellings from their hides is more evident than the guidance to construct dwellings as such.

As for the benefit of protection, He says:

“And Allah has made for you shade from what He has created, and has made for you shelters in the mountains.”

“Shade” encompasses everything that provides shade, including the canopies, tents and roofs that people make. His words, “shelters in the mountains,” refer to the protection a mountain affords a person from above, from the right and left, and from below. The purpose here is not to obtain shade, unlike the shade-giving structures, whose purpose is precisely that. This is why He mentions alongside these the protective benefit of garments. Thus, this verse brings together the protection afforded by clothing, which moves with the body, and the protection afforded by shade-giving structures fixed to the ground.

For this reason, people in the pre-Islamic period treated the two alike in the case of a pilgrim in ihrām (ritual consecration): just as covering his head was forbidden, they forbade him to enter beneath a roof, until Allah revealed:

“Righteousness does not consist in entering houses from the back.”

A pilgrim in ihrām was thus permitted to seek shade beneath stationary things such as tents and trees. As for something attached that moves along with him, such as a litter, that presents its own difficulties, since it falls between garments and stationary shade-giving structures and shelters.

Likewise, before these verses, He mentions the different kinds of drinks—milk, wine and honey—while at the beginning of the surah He mentions mounts and foods. These encompass the main categories of food, drink, clothing, dwellings and mounts.