Boundaries and the One Who Splits Them

And this is very important, because in the Qurʾān there is an idea of ḥudūd, of boundaries: that the human being is morally bound to stay within the boundaries and not transgress them. The word in Arabic for an evildoer is fāsiq, which comes from a root word used when the seed splits and comes out of the shell. So the fāsiq, the evildoer, is the one that splits the protective boundaries of the ḥudūd.

Now these — the ḥudūd of Allah, which are the sharīʿah, the sacred law — are seen as not simply arbitrary laws: do not do this, do not do that. They are protective laws, from the Muslim perspective. These are laws designed to maintain integrity within the society. When the Qurʾān says: do not go near fornication — why? It says because it is a fāḥishah, it is a perversion, and it leads down a terrible road:

So the idea is that this is not simply an arbitrary law: there are consequences related to this transgression that will have wretched effects in your culture and in your civilisation.