Al-Isrā’ 17:45

The issue

It is narrated that Muhammad was subject to possible harm by the Quraysh whenever he recited the Qur’ān. So, Allah made him invisible to them. In the Palmer translation, the verse states, “…[W]e place between thee and those who believe not in the hereafter a covering veil”. (This English translation of “covering veil” best captures the problem in the Arabic text.) The Arabic text states hijāban mastūran (“a covered veil”), which creates a strange phrase. A veil is already a covering. Why would one cover a veil with another cover?

How do Islamic exegetes justify the use of “a covered veil” instead of “a covering veil”? They state that mastūran means “having a veil.”Arab grammarian, al-Akhfash al-Akbar, defines “‘covered’ here [as] ‘covering.’” However, many Muslim scholars have reservations concerning the analysis of al-Akhfash and how he derived it.

In an attempt to escape this incorrect word, mastūran, al-Zamakhsharī writes that “it is said that it is an invisible veil, thus it is hidden. It is also possible that the intention is that it is a veil within a veil or veils, thus it is hidden by another”.

All these interpretations only confuse the reader. The reasoning behind them distracts the reader from the incorrect word choice, an error possibly made in the effort to hold the rhyme for verses 44-47 so that they all end in words with ūran as an ending.