5:90 avoid 'IT' or 'HIM'?

[Roshan]

Peace:

5:90 has been discussed many time here before, but specifically, I wanted to ask the aforementioned question.

Is it 'HIM' because the 'hu' pronoun is 3rd person masculine singular object pronoun which agrees with Shaitan:

http://corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?chapter=5&verse=90

Roshan

[IAMOP]

Avoid both. Presently I believe these are allowed but the command is definitely avoid both. AKA 'learn the easy way or learn the hard way'.

[Wakas]

AFAIK, it can be translated as "him" or "it".

[nevashiva]

umm..I believe it is referring to the activities as the *WORK* of Satan...so I would say it is *it*. You are avoiding his *work*.

I could be wrong.

[Roshan]

Peace:

Thanks for the posts all.

The next step (for me) is to check out the roots and context for the word avoid.

Roshan

[IAMOP]

umm..I believe it is referring to the activities as the *WORK* of Satan...so I would say it is *it*. You are avoiding his *work*.

I could be wrong.

The answer is already presented in 5:91: Satan's plan is to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will you not then abstain?

So you can see what the plan of satan is:

• Make people hate each other
• Keep people from remembering God
• Keep people away from salat

Intoxicants and gambling can be used for those things. All matches can be used to burn down buildings but not all matches are used for crimes. So if a person's usage of intoxicants/gambling fulfils any of the criteria above then it is forbidden without a doubt (the bad). If it does not then it is halal without a doubt as there is no reason to prohibit it (the good). We know that the bad outweighs the good. We forbid the bad and we promote the good because this is the way of God. God does not permit evil, and God does not prohibit goodness.