أَوْ أَمَرَ بِٱلتَّقْوَىٰٓ
Au amara bit taqwaa
or encourages true piety?
or calls others to mindfulness of God?
Commentators have divided over whose conduct this line describes. On one reading the subject is the servant at prayer, and the question asks what the man forbidding him thinks he is obstructing, someone guided who urges others toward taqwā; on the other it is the forbidder himself, asked to picture how things would stand had he chosen guidance and taqwā instead. Arabic leaves the pronoun open, and each reading aims the rebuke from a different side.