Topic: Consensus

2:229; 65:5.

See 2:230.

3:104.

Important Words:

بلغن (they approach) is from بلغ which means, he reached or came to or attained; or he was near to reaching or attaining (Lane).

اجل (period) is the noun-infinitive from the verb اجل meaning, he or it delayed or fell short. اجل الشیء means, he appointed a time or period for the thing. اجل therefore means, the term or period appointed or specified for a thing; also the end of such period. Death is called اجل because for every life there is an appointed time when it must come to an end (Aqrab Lane).

یعظکم (exhorts you). یعظ is derived from وعظ meaning, he gave him good advice; he exhorted him; he admonished him; he warned him of the consequences of his actions and called him to a life of righteousness (Aqrab).

Commentary:

The verse contains a general injunction about the treatment of divorced women.

As is apparent from the context, the divorce spoken of here refers to the revocable divorce. After such divorce has been pronounced, there are only two courses open to the husband. He may either retain his wife and treat her with kindness or he may part with her in a good and becoming manner. He is not allowed to maltreat her and keep her in a state of suspense. The concluding part of the verse warns the husband against making light of the commandments of Allah relating to the rights of women, adding that, God being All-Knowing, even the hidden intentions and secret machinations of man are known to Him.

5:76.

2:144, 218; 5:55; 47:39.

Commentary:

As already mentioned (3:122), the false report was spread at Uhud that the Holy Prophet was killed. The verse refers to this incident and purports to say that although the report about the death of the Prophet was untrue, yet even if it had been true, that should not have made the Faithful waver in their faith. Muhammad was only a Prophet; and as other Prophets before him had died, so would he. But the God of Islam ever lives.

It is also on record that when, seven years later, the Holy Prophet died, ‘Umar stood up in the Mosque at Medina with a drawn sword in his hand, and said, "Whoever will say that the Prophet of God is dead, I will cut off his head. He is not dead, but has gone to his Lord, (i.e. he has ascended to heaven) even as Moses had gone to his Lord, and he would come back and punish the hypocrites." At this stage, Abu Bakr, who happened to be away at the time of the Prophet’s death, hurriedly came back, went straight into the Prophet’s chamber and, seeing that he was really dead, kissed his forehead, saying, "Sweet art thou in death as thou wert in life, and surely God will not bring on thee two deaths." Then he came out, strong and firm, asked ‘Umar to sit down and, addressing the Companions, who were gathered in the Mosque, recited to them this very verse, i.e. Muhammad is only a Messenger; verily all Messengers have passed away before him; if then he die or be slain, will you turn back on your heels? meaning, that in the circumstances it was no wonder that the Holy Prophet also had passed away. Hearing this timely recital, ‘Umar, and all others, were convinced of the death of the Holy Prophet and were overpowered with grief. Thus, the verse incidentally proves that the Prophets that lived before the Holy Prophet had all died; for if any of them had been alive, the verse could not have been quoted as proof of the Holy Prophet’s death.

The verse also negates the idea that any Prophet has risen to heaven; for it was used to falsify ‘Umar’s contention to the effect that the Holy Prophet was not dead but had risen to heaven. The verse thus proves, without a shadow of doubt, that Jesus too, who was one of the Prophets that had appeared before the Holy Prophet, is not physically alive in the heavens, as some present-day Muslims, following the Christian belief, erroneously think. He is certainly dead, as proved by this verse and the consensus of the Companions’ opinion on the occasion of the death of the Holy Prophet.

In fact, religion does not depend on any personality. It belongs to God alone. That is why the Quran says that if the Holy Prophet dies or is killed, it will be no ground for Muslims to turn away from Islam; for the Prophet is only a Messenger and the religion is God’s. Elsewhere, however, the Quran clearly says: And Allah will protect thee from men(5:68). These two verses are not at variance with each other. What the Quran intends to emphasize in the verse is the fundamental truth of Islamic teachings. Muslims had seen how pure and true these teachings were. Their truth was evident and they could not have become false even if the Holy Prophet had been slain. For instance, the fundamental teaching of Islam is the Unity of God. Now, this truth could not become an untruth if the Prophet were killed. But apart from this announcement in principle, the Prophet could not be killed, for God had definitely promised to protect him.

It should also be remembered that immunity from being murdered is not given in the Quran as a criterion of a Prophet’s truth. People are required to accept a Prophet in his lifetime, and, therefore, they must have proofs of his truth in his lifetime, so that, by witnessing them, they may believe in him. They cannot wait till the time of his death in order to know whether he is a true or a false claimant.

Once a Prophet has furnished clear proofs of his truth in his lifetime, his claim is established and nothing can undo those proofs. Only if a Prophet were murdered before he had been able to give any proof of his truth could we conclude that he had proved a failure and was not a true claimant. But such a thing has never happened.

The enemy rejoiced when the report went round that the Prophet had been slain, but that supposed death of the Prophet turned out to be the veritable "life" of Islam. It fulfilled a great purpose. It prepared Muslims for the actual passing of the Holy Prophet. If this event had not occurred, the death of the Holy Prophet would have proved an unbearable trial for Muslims. In fact, this painful experience brought in disguise many blessings for Islam. At the Battle of Uhud, it brought to light the unshakable faith of the believers; at the time of his death it served to save Islam from going to pieces; and now that Islam is to all appearances dead, it is serving as a means of breathing new life into it, by proving that Jesus, whom Christians have deified, is dead, like all other Prophets that lived before Islam.

4:26; 5:6.

4:5; 60:11.

Important Words:

المحصنات (married) is the plural of محصنة and is derived from حصن meaning, he or it was or became inaccessible, fortified or protected against attack. حصن المرأة means, the woman was chaste, i.e. protected against moral or sexual sinfulness. احصنت المرأة means, the woman got married. محصنة therefore, means a married woman; a chaste woman who abstains from what is unlawful; a free or noble woman as opposed to a bondwoman. Similarly محصن means, a married man; chaste man who abstains from what is unlawful: a free or noble man. حصن means, a fort or a fortress. The word محصنات would, therefore, mean, women who have protected themselves by entering, as it were, the fortress of marriage. The word has been used in the Quran in all the different senses, i.e. (1) married women, (2) chaste women and (3) free women; but in the present verse it has been used in the sense of married women (Lane & Aqrab).

مسافحین (committing fornication) is the active participle from سافح which is derived from سفح. They say سفح الدم i.e. he shed blood or made it flow. سفح الدمع means, tears began to flow. Thus the word is both transitive and intransitive. سافحة means, he vied with the other party in shedding blood; he committed fornication. مسافحة means, a fornicator and مسافحة means, a fornicatress (Lane & Aqrab).

اجور (dowries) is the plural of اجر which means, reward or wages. اجر المرأة means, dowry of a woman (Taj). Also, in 33:51 the word has been used in the sense of dowry.

استمتعتم (the benefit you receive) is formed from متع. They say متعھا بکذا i.e. he gave her (his wife) such a thing. تمتع بالمرأةmeans, he benefited by the woman temporarily. استمتع بکذا means, he benefited by it for a long time. The Arabic idiom does not countenance the use of استمتاع with regard to a woman in the sense of temporary connection (Lisan). It must also be noted that whenever the noun تمتع (tamattu‘) is used to denote temporary connection with a woman, it is followed by the preposition با (ba) put before the word standing for the woman, as in the above example. But in the expression فما استمتعم به منھن to pronoun ھن referring to women is preceded by the preposition من.

ماملکت ایمانکم (what your right hands possess). The Arabs say ھذا ملک یمینی i.e. he or it is in the possession of my right hand, meaning, he or it is in my possession and I can deal with him or it as I like (Lisan & Aqrab). The expression ما ملکت ایمانکمgenerally signifies, men or women taken prisoner in war and being in the custody and control of their Muslim captors. In this verse, the expression means women prisoners only. The term has been used by the Quran in preference to عباد or اماء (slaves and bondwomen) to point to just and rightful possession, the word ایمان (right hands) also pointing to the same fact.

Commentary:

The expression, such as your right hands possess, has been used in the Quran with regard to those men or women who took part in aggressive wars against Islam and fell prisoners into the hands of Muslims. The context, however, shows that the expression used in the present verse means female prisoners of war. Islam does not allow women taken prisoner in ordinary wars to be taken as wives. This exceptional injunction becomes operative only when a hostile nation wages a religious war against Islam with a view to extirpating it and compelling Muslims to abandon their religion at the point of the sword, and treats their prisoners as slaves, as was done in the days of the Holy Prophet when the enemy took away Muslim women as prisoners and treated them as slaves. The Islamic injunction was thus only a retaliatory measure and also served the additional purpose of protecting the morals of captive women who were generally in large numbers and whom war separated from their kith and kin. A people who seek to compel others to forsake their religion at the point of the sword and reduce them to slavery are mere brutes and not respectable human beings. They must be paid back in their own coin in order to bring them to their senses. For a fuller exposition of this subject see General Introduction.

It may be noted that it is not permitted to take into marriage such female relations of a bondwoman who is treated as wife, as correspond to the relations of a free woman within the prohibited degree. For instance, the mothers, sisters, daughters etc. of such bondwomen cannot be taken in marriage.

The advocates of mut‘a (temporary marriage) have endeavoured in vain to infer its legality from this verse. The Quran and the Arabic language both contradict this manifestly unfounded inference. The misunderstanding about mut‘aseems to have arisen from the failure to understand the difference between the meanings of تمتع and استمتاع given under Important Words. The author of Lisanul-‘Arab quotes Zajjaj as saying: "This is a verse in the interpretation of which some men have committed a great blunder, owing to their ignorance of the Arabic language. They have inferred from it the legality of mut‘a which, by the consensus of opinion among Muslim theologians, has been declared to be unlawful, whereas the words simply mean marriage performed in accordance with the conditions mentioned above."

According to Arabic usage, the legality of mut‘a, as asserted by some people, cannot, therefore, be inferred from this verse. If there had been any reference to mut‘a, the preposition used ought to have been با (ba) and not من (min). Moreover, the expression used here is not تمتع but استمتع which possesses a sense different from that of the former word.

Nor can any inference in favour of mut‘a be drawn from the expression اجورھن which, as explained under Important Words, means "their dowries", in which sense it has been used in the Quran elsewhere also (33:51).

On principle, the dowry must be paid immediately at marriage; but with the wife’s consent the payment can be suitably deferred. The husband can increase the amount of the dowry later, if he so desires; but he cannot decrease it except with the permission of the wife or the qadi.

Commentary:

According to consensus of scholarly opinion this is the first verse which gave Muslims permission to take up arms in self-defence. The verse was revealed very early in Medina. "It is much more reasonable," says Wherry, to suppose with Muir that this command emanated from Medina. Nöldeke also relegated this command to Medina" (Wherry’s Commentary).

The next verse also lends support to this inference. It states that the permission to fight was given after the Muslims had been driven out of their hearths and homes. If, as some commentators of the Quran hold, the verse was revealed at Mecca, it must have been revealed immediately before Hijrah when most of the Muslims had already migrated to Medina and the Holy Prophet with only a very few Muslims had remained behind in Mecca and their cup of hardships and privations had become full to the brim. But the former view seems to be more akin to fact and reality.

The verse lays down principles according to which Muslims can wage a defensive war, and clearly sets forth the reasons which led a handful of Muslims, without arms and other material means, to fight in self-defence after they had suffered at Mecca ceaseless persecution for years and had been pursued with relentless hatred to Medina and were harassed and harried there too. The first and foremost reason given is that "they had been wronged." The Muslims had suffered untold persecution and war was actually forced upon them. The verse incidentally shows that the Muslims were also very weak in numbers, means and material when the permission to fight in self-defence was granted to them as the comforting and encouraging words, "And Allah indeed has power to help them," indicate. These words also implied a prophecy that though the Muslims were weak and their enemy was proud and powerful, yet as they were fighting in the cause of truth God would help them and they would be victorious.

Important Words:

تمنی (he sought or desired to obtain). تمنی الشیء means, he desired the thing. تمنی الرجل means, the man lied. تمنی الکتاب means, he read or recited the book. أمنیة (أمانی plural) means, what is desired; a lie; an object of wish (Aqrab).

Commentary:

This verse has been subjected to much conjecture and speculation by some ignorant and careless commentators and has been deliberately misinterpreted and its meaning purposely distorted by prejudiced Christian writers. It is said that one day at Mecca when the Holy Prophet recited the Quranic verse, أفرأیتم اللات والعزی و مناة الثالثة الاخری i.e. "now tell me about Lat and ‘Uzza, and Manat, the third one, another goddess" (53:21), Satan put in his mouth the words تلک الغرانیق العلی وان شفا عتھن لترتجی i.e. these are exalted goddesses and their intercession is hoped for. They call it the 'lapse of Muhammad' or his 'compromise with idolatry'. In fact the Holy Prophet never made any compromise with idolatry nor was there any lapse on his part. The lapse, if any, occurred in the minds of these hostile critics of Islam. It is a case of wish being father to the thought. These people are always on the lookout to discover a lapse in the Holy Prophet and when they find none, they invent one and impute it to him.

They say that the verse under comment refers to the above incident. We shall deal at length with the whole episode when we come to the relevant verse i.e. 53:21. Suffice it here to say that the whole story is belied by the fact that 53rdchapter was, according to consensus of scholarly opinion, revealed in the 5th year of the Call at Mecca while the present Surah was revealed at Medina or on the eve of his departure from Mecca. It is inconceivable that God should have waited for eight long years to refer in this verse to that incident. Moreover, the story has been rejected as totally unfounded by all learned commentators of the Quran, Ibn Kathir, being one of them. It appears to have been based on some reports narrated by Waqidi, whom all competent authorities regard as quite untrustworthy. It seems strange that the utterance of this blasphemy should have been attributed to that great and uncompromising iconoclast i.e. the Holy Prophet, whose whole life was spent in denouncing and condemning idolatry and idol worship. Besides this the whole context of 53:21 belies this story. The verses preceding and succeeding 53:21 contain an unsparing denunciation of idolatry. In fact the whole Surah (53) is a condemnation of شرک (idol worship).

Moreover, there is nothing in the words of the verse itself to warrant the forging of such a blatant lie. The meaning of the verse is quite clear. It purports to say that whenever a Prophet desires to attain his object, i.e. whenever he preaches the message of truth and desires that Divine Unity may be established on earth, Satan places all sorts of obstacles and impediments in his way, i.e. wicked people seek to retard the progress of truth by putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of the Prophet. They wish to see his mission fail. But they cannot frustrate the Divine plan and God removes all those impediments and makes the cause of truth prevail and triumph. This meaning of the verse is quite simple and clear and is in perfect harmony with the text. The words "But Allah removes the obstacles placed by Satan," lend powerful support to this meaning. The verse is of general import. What it refers to happens in the case of every prophet. There is no warrant for suggesting that the verse applies exclusively to the Holy Prophet. History too supports the view that the verse is of general application. In their impatience to find fault with the Holy Prophet, however, hostile Christian writers have singled him out, and, misinterpreting the verse, have attributed a supposed lapse to him.

Moreover, it is wrong to suggest, as some commentators have done, that it is possible for Satan to interfere with the purity of the Quranic revelation. God has taken upon Himself to protect and safeguard it against all interference and interpolation. See also 15:10 & 72:27-29.

Commentary:

In the combined abbreviated letters یاسین the word سین according to Ibn ‘Abbas stands for الانسان meaning, man or perfect man, or for سید i.e. chief or leader. Thus the expression یاسین would mean, "O Perfect Man!" or "O Perfect Leader!" According to the consensus of scholarly opinion, the reference in these combined letters is to the Holy Prophet. The Prophet has been addressed as "Perfect Man" because humanity found its best and most perfect specimen in him. He has also been called "the Perfect Leader," because after his advent great religious Reformers and divine teachers were to rise only from among his followers. The door of revelation has been closed to the followers of all other Prophets. He is therefore "the perfect man" or the "leader par excellence."