يَتَوَفَّىٰ

4:20, 26; 24:20.

Important Words:

الفاحشة (lewdness) is derived from فحش. They say فحش الامر i.e. the matter or the affair or the thing was or became foul, evil, immodest or lewd; or it became excessively foul, etc. فحشت المرأة means, the woman became foul or ugly. فاحشهmeans, he vied with him or strove to surpass him in foul or obscene speech or language, etc. فاحشة therefore means, an excess or enormity or anything exceeding the bounds of rectitude; or a thing excessively and enormously foul, evil, immoral, lewd or obscene; a sin or crime which is excessively foul; adultery or fornication. فحشاءbesides giving the same meaning as فاحشة also signifies avarice or niggardliness in the payment of Zakah or the poor-rate (Lane).

Commentary:

The women referred to in this verse are those guilty of foul or immoral conduct short of adultery. Abu Muslim and Mujahid, among others, have also held this view.

The words, confine them to the houses until death overtake them or Allah open for them a way, mean that they should be prevented from mixing with other women until they reform themselves or get married, marriage being an effective means of weaning people from immoral practices. As the offence mentioned is a serious one, four witnesses are considered necessary in order to prevent injustice being done to women.

Some scholars have sought to interpret the verse in the light of a saying of the Holy Prophet which runs as follows: "Learn from me, Allah has indeed opened for them a way, which is that if an unmarried couple commit fornication with each other they should receive a hundred stripes and should be banished for one year. But if a married man commits adultery with a married woman, then they should receive a hundred stripes each and be stoned to death" (Jarir, iv. 182). These scholars hold that the word فاحشة (fahishah) mentioned in the verse means "adultery" and that this verse prescribed that the women who committed adultery were to be detained in their houses till their death or till the time when God should open a way for them, i.e. reveal the law concerning them; and that the law which was afterwards revealed was to the effect that an unmarried woman committing fornication should receive a hundred stripes and one year’s banishment, while a married woman guilty of adultery should be stoned to death after she had received a hundred stripes. This interpretation, however, is open to many objections:

1. If the words, confine them to the houses until death overtake them or Allah open for them a way, mean that they were to be detained in their houses until God gave His law concerning them, the question is, what hindered God from giving His law at the very time of the revelation of the verse under comment? There is no hint here that the time was not yet ripe for such a law to be revealed. In this case, the only inference will be that God hesitated to give the necessary law at the time when this verse was revealed because He was not yet decided, the matter being still under His consideration. Such a supposition cannot be made about God.

2. The law mentioned in the above-quoted hadith is not found in the Quran.

3. The Holy Prophet’s own practice was against this hadith. No less than four persons were stoned to death for adultery in his lifetime, but none of them was given the punishment of a hundred stripes before being stoned as the above-mentioned hadith prescribes.

It may also be pointed out here that according to the usage of the Quran, the word فاحشة (fahishah) does not always mean "adultery" but as shown under Important Words above, it is also applied to all sorts of excesses or sins or crimes or acts exceeding the bounds of rectitude. For this meaning of the word the reader is referred to 33:31 which says: O wives of the Prophet, if any of you be guilty of فاحشة مبینة (manifestly dishonourable conduct); and 65:2 which says: unless they commit فاحشة مبینة (an act which is manifestly foul); and 7:29 which says: and when they commit فاحشة (a foul deed). In none of these verses does the word فاحشة mean adultery.

39:43.

Important Words:

یتوفاکم (who takes your souls). The learned author of the Al-Bahrul-Muhit says: "The word توفی (tawaffi), as is well-known, means, 'to cause to die,' but in this verse it has been metaphorically used in the sense of 'causing to sleep' on account of the close resemblance between sleep and death." See also 2:235 & 3:56.

جرحتم (you do) is derived from جرح They say جرحه i.e. he wounded him. جرح also means, he acquired, earned, worked or did (Lane).

Commentary:

The subject that none but God is entitled to punish is continued in this verse, which says that God alone knows the condition of man by night and his actions by day, and all times are subject to His control, and, therefore, it is He alone Who knows the true character of the pious and the wicked, and consequently none but He is in a position to punish. Again, it is He alone Who knows the time most suited for the death of a person and, therefore, He has not entrusted the work of punishment to others.

The words, that the appointed term may be completed, do not refer to any term arbitrarily fixed by God. The "term" spoken of here is determined by the faculties and powers with which man is endowed from the time of his birth, and is liable to be increased or decreased according as a right or wrong use is made of the faculties granted to him. There is no reference here to the eternal knowledge of God.

109:3.

6:164.

Commentary:

The Holy Prophet is here made to say to disbelievers, "You say you have doubts concerning my religion, whereas my acting on this very religion has given me an invincible conviction of faith. I wonder why this religion should give rise to doubts in your minds?"

The expression, causes you to die, has been employed here to hint that the God of Islam was in the end going to punish disbelievers.

22:6.

Commentary:

In vv. 52-54, it was explained that the false gods of disbelievers were unable to devise a Law for the guidance of mankind, and in the immediately preceding verses it has been made clear that disbelievers too cannot make such a Law. The present verse, however, makes a more general statement and says that a perfect Law can only be framed by Him Who has full control over man’s birth, death and reasoning faculties, Who knows his needs and requirements and knows also how to satisfy them. God being Almighty and All-Knowing, all these things are subject to His control. He selects as His Messenger only him of whom He knows that his intellect would not suffer decline. History bears testimony to the fact that whereas there have been thousands of Prophets, there never was one whose reason or intellect ever declined or was impaired. This fact clearly shows that God Who had sent these Messengers had full control over their mental powers. Hence the Almighty and the All-Knowing God alone can send down revelation embodying principles and teaching which can lead man to the realization of the noble and grand purpose of his life.

Nations, like individuals, are subject to the law of decline and death. After attaining to the highest stages of knowledge they begin to show signs of senility and decay or relapse into ignorance. When one nation suffers intellectual or moral death, God makes another nation take its place and gives it a new Prophet and a new Law. The use of the Divine attributes of "All-Knowing" and "Powerful" at the end of the verse suggests that the function of giving true guidance properly belongs to Him Whose knowledge and powers never suffer decline or impairment.