Taqwā in the Qurʾan

Taqwā springs from a root whose first sense is the garment or coat of mail that wards off harm; the Qurʾan carries that same image over to the heart, making taqwā not a trembling emotion but a protection deliberately put on and worn, in solitude as in public.

By Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Ali Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy (AIA)

In Sūrat al-Naḥl the Qurʾan recalls a simple, tangible blessing:

﴿وَجَعَلَ لَكُمْ سَرَابِيلَ تَقِيكُمُ الْحَرَّ وَسَرَابِيلَ تَقِيكُمْ بَأْسَكُمْ﴾ (16:81)

"And He made for you garments that shield you from the heat, and garments that shield you in your warfare."

Shirts that guard the body from the blaze of the sun; coats of mail that guard it from the thrust of the spear. The verb that describes both forms of protection is one and the same, taqī, and it comes from the very root that gives the Qurʾanic moral vocabulary its greatest word: taqwā. What is the meaning of this choice? Why should the Qurʾan name the highest degree of nearness to God with the same word it uses for a shirt that protects from heat and a coat of mail that protects from the blade?

The Root and Its Occurrences

The root w-q-y occurs in the Noble Qurʾan two hundred and fifty-eight times, in eight forms.^[1] The first is the simple verb waqā, "to guard and preserve," a direct and tangible protection, which occurs sixteen times (as in the verse with which this article opened). With it comes the active participle wāqin, "protector, defender," which occurs three times, always in a negative context: ﴿مَا لَهُمْ مِنَ اللَّهِ مِنْ وَاقٍ﴾ (13:34, 13:37; 40:21), "they have no protector against God." This first field, nineteen occurrences in all, carries the plain physical sense of the root: the shielding of a body from outward harm.

The second field, the focus of this article, comprises the forms in which that same meaning is carried over to moral protection: the derived verb ittaqā (the eighth form, ifticāl), which occurs one hundred and sixty-six times and is by far the most frequent; the participle muttaqīn, forty-nine times; the verbal noun taqwā, seventeen times; the elative atqā, twice; and the adjective taqī, found, among other places, at 19:13, 19:18 and 19:63. This moral field amounts to some two hundred and thirty-eight occurrences, and it is the direct lexical witness to taqwā in its Qurʾanic sense.

One occurrence stands outside both fields: tuqāh in the words of the Exalted, ﴿إِلَّا أَنْ تَتَّقُوا مِنْهُمْ تُقَاةً﴾ (3:28), "unless you guard yourselves against them with caution." It is a juristic term for concealing one's convictions under duress (taqiyyah), a matter with its own independent chapter in jurisprudence, and it lies beyond the scope of this study.

The Linguistic Root: From the Shield to the Heart

Ibn Fāris observes in Maqāyīs al-Lugha that the root wāw-qāf-yāʾ "denotes warding off one thing from another by means of something."^[2] The definition fits, word for word, both the shirt and the coat of mail of Sūrat al-Naḥl and taqwā in its technical sense. There is always a party that is feared, a party that is to be protected, and a barrier set between them.

When the Qurʾan turns the verb from its simple form waqā (one thing protects another) to the form ittaqā, which commonly signals that the agent acts for himself, the sense passes from a protection granted by something external (the shirt, the mail) to a protection a person fashions with his own hands. He takes his obedience and submission as a barrier between himself and what he fears, just as he takes his shirt as a barrier between himself and the heat.

Taqwā Is Not Fear, Nor Even Khashyah

To see what sets taqwā apart from its sister words for dread and awe, it helps to recall the two points of comparison that the Arabs themselves supply. Ibn Fāris says, under the entry khawf, that khāʾ-wāw-fāʾ is "a single root denoting terror and panic."[^أ] Fear, then, is an emotion that falls suddenly upon the heart before something terrifying: a state that befalls a person, not an act that he performs.

As for khashyah, al-Rāghib al-Aṣfahānī, in al-Mufradāt fī Gharīb al-Qurʾān, distinguishes it from fear as "fear tinged with reverence," most often arising "from knowledge of that which is feared."[^ب] This is why the Qurʾan reserves it for the learned: ﴿إِنَّمَا يَخْشَى اللَّهَ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ الْعُلَمَاءُ﴾ (35:28), "Only those of His servants who have knowledge truly fear God." Khashyah ranks above fear because it is joined to knowledge; yet like its sisters it remains a condition that dwells in the heart.

Taqwā is a further step. It is what the heart does once it has felt khashyah, when it translates that awe into a practical protection deliberately taken up. He who feels awe but takes no precaution has been content with an inward emotion; he who practices taqwā has turned his awe into a shield that is worn and a conduct that is lived. This is the fine distinction lost whenever taqwā is rendered as mere "fear of God": taqwā is the fruit of khashyah, not its synonym.

The Central Structure: Taking a Protection, Not Merely Fearing

This subtle morphological distinction resolves a familiar difficulty. To translate taqwā as "fear of God" is to fall short, since it overlooks the positive act latent in the word. Fear is a feeling that seizes the heart; ittiqāʾ, guarding oneself, is something the limbs do: to set one foot forward and hold the other back.

So it is related that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, asked Ubayy ibn Kaʿb about the meaning of taqwā, and Ubayy answered with a question: "Have you never walked a path strewn with thorns?" "Indeed I have," said ʿUmar. "And what did you do?" "I gathered up my garments and strove with all my effort." "That," said Ubayy, "is taqwā."^[3]

In this image handed down from the Companions, taqwā is not the rigidity of fear but the vigilance of a traveler on a path set with hazards, who weighs the ground beneath every step. That is exactly what "taking a protection" means: a deliberate, recurring act, and not a passing flush of emotion.

A Model That Confirms the Metaphor: The Garment of Taqwā

This central metaphor is further confirmed by the fact that the Qurʾan itself revives it openly in another sūrah. In Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, after recalling the blessing of clothing that covers nakedness and serves as adornment, God concludes:

﴿وَلِبَاسُ التَّقْوَىٰ ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ﴾ (7:26)

"But the garment of taqwā, that is better."

The Qurʾan is not content to use one linguistic root for both bodily and moral protection; it goes further and calls taqwā itself a "garment," a mail and a shirt to be worn, like the garments of al-Naḥl. Thus it closes the circle it opened in Sūrat al-Naḥl: the shirt protects the body, taqwā is a shirt that protects the heart, and the second is better than the first, for its protection is more lasting and more complete.

Another Model: The Seat of Taqwā in the Human Being

If taqwā is a garment to be worn, where on the person does it rest? The Qurʾan answers in the context of the rites of Ḥajj:

﴿ذَٰلِكَ وَمَنْ يُعَظِّمْ شَعَائِرَ اللَّهِ فَإِنَّهَا مِنْ تَقْوَى الْقُلُوبِ﴾ (22:32)

"That is so. And whoever honors the sacred rites of God, it is surely from the taqwā of hearts."

Taqwā is not an outward form by which a person's appearance may be judged; it is a state that dwells first in the heart, and only then shows its effects in the honoring of the rites and in every other deed. This agrees with the Prophetic hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ pointed to his breast three times, saying: «التَّقْوَى هَاهُنَا، التَّقْوَى هَاهُنَا، التَّقْوَى هَاهُنَا»,^[4] "Taqwā is here, taqwā is here, taqwā is here." Its true seat is the heart, not the limbs alone, even though it is the limbs that reveal its effect.

When No One Is Watching: The Milk-Seller and Her Daughter

If the seat of taqwā is the heart and not the limbs, its truest test is solitude, when every human watcher is absent. Among the best-known accounts the books of history and literature have transmitted to portray this meaning, though it has not been established by a continuous chain, is the report that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, was making his rounds one night to look into the condition of his people. He overheard a woman bidding her daughter to mix water into the milk so that there would be more to sell. The girl replied: "Do you not know that the Commander of the Faithful has forbidden adulteration?" "And where is ʿUmar now?" said the mother. "If ʿUmar does not see us," answered the girl, "the Lord of ʿUmar sees us."

Whatever the scholars' disagreement over the soundness of its chain, this answer has become proverbial, because the essence of taqwā is not that a man be upright before others, but that presence and absence be alike to him, since the true Watcher is never absent. It is just what Ibn al-Qayyim, transmitting from Ṭalq ibn Ḥabīb, set down as a comprehensive definition of taqwā: that you act in obedience to God, upon a light from God, hoping for God's reward; and that you abandon disobedience to God, upon a light from God, fearing God's punishment.[^ج] Taqwā, then, does not depend on the presence of people, but on a light of knowledge of God that accompanies a man in his solitude as in the open.

A Third Model: The Best Provision

In the context of the pilgrim's journey, when some set out for Ḥajj without material provisions, relying on others, this verse was revealed:

﴿وَتَزَوَّدُوا فَإِنَّ خَيْرَ الزَّادِ التَّقْوَىٰ﴾ (2:197)

"And take provision; for the best provision is taqwā."

Here taqwā is a provision taken for a journey, as food and water are taken for the journey of this world; yet this provision sustains its bearer on a far longer road than the pilgrimage: the journey of a whole lifetime toward the Hereafter. This extends the central metaphor once more. As tangible protection (the shirt, the provision) is taken up in readiness for an anticipated hardship, so taqwā is taken up in readiness for what will surely come.

A Fourth Model: The Only Measure of Excellence

The metaphor reaches its deepest social effect in a single verse that overturns every standard of superiority known to the Jāhiliyyah: lineage, wealth, and color.

﴿يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ وَأُنْثَىٰ وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ﴾ (49:13)

"O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Surely the most honored of you in God's sight is the most mindful of Him (atqākum)."

Having established that humanity has one origin, the Qurʾan makes the measure of honor before God single as well: he who has best taken up his protection, not he who has inherited lineage or wealth. This lifts taqwā from the level of individual virtue to that of a social measure that cuts across every inherited distinction.

A Fifth Model: The Condition of Acceptance

Taqwā attains yet another rank when the Qurʾan makes it a condition for the acceptance of a deed, and not merely for its performance. In the story of the two sons of Adam, each presented an offering, and God accepted it from one and not from the other. The reason is given plainly, on the lips of the one whose offering was accepted:

﴿إِنَّمَا يَتَقَبَّلُ اللَّهُ مِنَ الْمُتَّقِينَ﴾ (5:27)

"God accepts only from the mindful (al-muttaqīn)."

The difference between the two offerings lay not in their size or kind but in the heart of the one who presented them: did he bring his offering having taken protection as the foundation of his deed, or did he bring it without that foundation? This places taqwā before the deed itself. It is not a fruit gathered after the work is done, but a condition by which the heart is examined before the work is.

The Prophetic Witness

Al-Tirmidhī narrated, from the hadith of Abū Dharr and Muʿādh ibn Jabal, may God be pleased with them both, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

«اتَّقِ اللَّهَ حَيْثُمَا كُنْتَ، وَأَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَمْحُهَا، وَخَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقٍ حَسَنٍ»^[5]

"Be mindful of God wherever you may be; follow a misdeed with a good deed and it will efface it; and treat people with good character."

Three successive counsels that sum up practical taqwā: a vigilance that no change of place can interrupt; the immediate repair of error by an effacing good deed; and good character in dealing with others, which turns the inward protection into a visible effect among people. Taqwā in this hadith is not withdrawal from people but a bearing that accompanies a man everywhere, mends his faults, and refines his character.

A Reading in Light of the Higher Objectives

A number of scholars have observed that the Qurʾan links taqwā with most of the legal obligations in general, and not with some single act of worship. Fasting was prescribed "that you may attain taqwā" (2:183); in retribution there is life "that you may attain taqwā" (2:179); in Ḥajj there is the honoring of the rites, "from the taqwā of hearts" (22:32); and the Qurʾan itself was sent down as "a guidance for the mindful" (2:2).

In this repetition they see an indication that taqwā is not the goal of each act of worship taken separately, but the comprehensive goal by which the worth of every act of worship is measured. If an act of worship yields no true protection for the heart, its performer has carried it out without the spirit for which it was enjoined. This also explains why the Qurʾan chose to describe the Book itself as "a guidance for the mindful": taqwā is not only the fruit of guidance but a condition of receptivity to it, and whoever has taken up his protection from the first grows in guidance through the Qurʾan.

The reading is deepened by what the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī says in his commentary on the hadith "Be mindful of God wherever you may be" in Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam. He observes that the Prophet's third counsel in the hadith, "treat people with good character," belongs to taqwā itself and is not a counsel separate from it, and that "to combine the fulfillment of God's rights with the rights of His servants is exceedingly rare; none can sustain it but the most perfect of the prophets and the truthful."[^د] Taqwā, then, is not complete when only one's relation with God is protected; it extends to the protection of one's relations with people as well. Whoever is mindful of God in his solitude yet behaves badly toward others has attained only half of taqwā.

Three Links, Not One

If one wishes to see taqwā embodied, and not merely as an abstract meaning, the Qurʾan itself draws for the mindful a composite portrait of converging qualities, not of any single one. At the opening of Sūrat al-Baqarah, having described the Book as "a guidance for the mindful," it hastens to define them:

﴿الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنْفِقُونَ﴾ (2:3)

"Those who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them."

The first qualities named are an unseen that is believed in, a prayer that is established, and wealth that is spent: a relation with the unknown, a relation with the Creator, and a relation with the creature, all three together, none standing apart from the others. Sūrat Āl ʿImrān then adds detail to the portrait:

﴿الَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ فِي السَّرَّاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ﴾ (3:134)

"Those who spend in prosperity and in adversity, who restrain their anger and pardon people."

To the portrait it adds spending that does not cease when circumstances change, anger that is held back and not loosed, and forgiveness that is granted in place of vengeance. The next verse completes the picture with its hardest quality: those who, when they ﴿فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً أَوْ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ ذَكَرُوا اللَّهَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا لِذُنُوبِهِمْ﴾ (3:135), "commit an indecency or wrong themselves, remember God and seek forgiveness for their sins."

The mindful are not immune from stumbling. They are those who, when they stumble, hasten to repair the protection that has cracked rather than yield to its collapse. These qualities together (belief, worship, spending, restraint of anger, pardon, and return to God) are the practical face of all that this article has said through the metaphor of protection. As a coat of mail is not complete with a single plate, taqwā is not complete with a single trait.

The Contemporary Practical Dimension

Many confuse taqwā with severity or withdrawal, picturing the mindful believer as one burdened with prohibitions and shrinking from life. But the central metaphor uncovered here proposes another picture. Taqwā is not a wall behind which a person is shut in, but a shirt he puts on so as to move with greater freedom, not less. As the garments against heat and battle did not keep a man from working but enabled him to work in conditions that would otherwise have stopped him, so taqwā enables its bearer to meet life's temptations and dangers with steadiness, not with contraction.

And whoever takes up taqwā as a true protection, and not as a slogan repeated, finds what the Qurʾan has promised:

﴿وَمَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مَخْرَجًا﴾ (65:2)

"And whoever is mindful of God, He will make for him a way out."

A way out of the narrowness of this life, and not merely deliverance from the punishment of the Hereafter.

Conclusion

From a shirt that guards against the heat, to a coat of mail that guards against the blade, to a garment of the heart that guards against the wrath of God, the Qurʾan uses the same root with remarkable constancy to say one unchanging thing: that taqwā is not a fear that leaves its bearer immobilized, nor merely a khashyah dwelling in his heart, but a protection that a person takes up by his own act and will, the fruit of his knowledge of his Lord. It accompanies him in solitude as in public, and it is completed by converging qualities, not by a single trait, just as a man puts on his shirt on a day of heat.

And God knows best; He is the Granter of success, and there is no lord but Him.