066
The Message of the Quran
Muhammad Asad
AT-TAHRIM (PROHIBITION)
THE SIXTY-SIXTH
SURAH
Total Verses: 12
Introduction
REVEALED in the second half of the Medina period - probably
in 7 H. - this surah has been
occasionally designated as "The Surah of
the Prophet" (Zamakhshari) inasmuch as the first
half of it deals with certain aspects of his personal and family life.
IN THE NAME OF
GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
(1) O PROPHET! Why dost thou, out of a desire to please [one or
another of] thy wives, impose [on thyself] a prohibition of something that God
has made lawful to thee? 1 But God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of
grace:
(2)
God has already enjoined upon you [O believers] the breaking and expiation of
[such of] your oaths [as may run counter to what is right and just]: 2 for, God is your Lord Supreme, and He alone is
all-knowing, truly wise.
(3)
And lo! 3
[It so happened that] the Prophet told something in confidence to one of his
wives; and when she thereupon divulged it, and God made this known to him, he
acquainted [others] with some of it and passed over some of it. 4 And as soon as he let her know it, she asked,
"Who has told thee this?" 5 - [to which] he replied, "The All-Knowing,
the All-Aware has told me."
(4)
[Say, O Prophet: 6]
"Would that you two turn unto God in repentance, for the hearts of both of
you have swerved [from what is right]! 7 And if you uphold each other against him [who
is God's message-bearer, know that] God Himself is his Protector, and [that,]
therefore, 8
Gabriel, and all the righteous among the believers and all the [other] angels
will come to his aid."
(5)
[O wives of the Prophet!] Were he to divorce [any of] you, God might well give
him in your stead spouses better than you - women who surrender themselves unto
God, who truly believe, devoutly obey His will, turn [unto Him] in repentance
[whenever they have sinned] worship [Him alone] and go on and on [seeking His
goodly acceptance] 9
- be they women previously married or virggins. 10
(6)
O YOU who have attained to faith! Ward off from yourselves and those who are
close to you 11
that fire [of the hereafter] whose fuel is human beings and stones: 12 [lording] over it are angelic powers awesome
[and] severe, 13
who do not disobey God in whatever He has commanded them, but [always] do what
they are bidden to do. 14
(7)
[Hence,] O you who are bent on denying the truth, make
no [empty] excuses today: 15 [in the life to come] you shall be but
recompensed for what you were doing [in this world].
(8)
O you who have attained to faith! Turn unto God in sincere repentance: 16 it may well be .that your Sustainer will
efface from you your bad deeds, and will admit you into gardens through which
running waters flow, on a Day on which God will not shame the Prophet and those
who share his faith: 17 their light will spread rapidly before them,
and on their right; 18
[and] they will pray: "O our Sustainer! Cause this our light to shine for
us forever, 19
and forgive us our sins: for, verily, Thou hast the power to will
anything!"
(9)
O PROPHET! Strive hard against the deniers of the truth and the hypocrites, and
be adamant with them. 20 And [if they do not repent,] their goal shall
be hell - and how vile a journey’s end!
(10)
For those who are bent on denying the truth God has propounded a parable in
[the stories of] Noah's wife and Lot's wife: they were wedded to two of Our
righteous servants, and each one betrayed her husband; 21 and neither of the two [husbands] will be of
any avail to these two women when they are told [on Judgment Day], "Enter
the fire with all those [other sinners] who enter it!" 22
(11)
And for those who have attained to faith God has propounded a parable in [the story
of] Pharaoh's wife 23
as she prayed "O my Sustainer! Build Thou for me a mansion in the paradise
[that is] with Thee, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings, and save me, from
all evildoing folk!
(12)
And [We have propounded yet another parable of God-consciousness in the story
of] Mary, the daughter of Imran, 24 who guarded her chastity, whereupon We
breathed of Our spirit into that [which was in her womb], 25 and who accepted the truth of her Sustainer’s
words - and [thus,] of His revelations 26 - and was one of the truly devout.
1
There are several essentially conflicting - and, therefore, in their aggregate,
not very trustworthy - reports as to the exact reason or reasons why, at some
time during the second half of the Medina period, the Prophet declared on oath
that for one month he would have no intercourse with any of his wives. Still,
while the exact reason cannot be established with certainty, it is sufficiently
clear from the above-mentioned ahadith that
this emotional, temporary renunciation of marital life was caused by a display
of mutual jealousy among some of the Prophet's wives. In any case, the purport
of the above Qur'anic allusion to this incident is
not biographical but, rather, intended to bring out a moral lesson applicable
to all human situations: namely, the inadmissibility of regarding as forbidden (haram) anything that God has made lawful (halal), even if such an attitude happens to be motivated
by the desire to please another person or other persons. Apart from this, it
serves to illustrate the fact - repeatedly stressed in the Qur'an
- that the Prophet was but a human being, and therefore subject to human
emotions and even liable to commit an occasional mistake (which in his case,
however, was invariably pointed out to him, and thus rectified, through divine
revelation).
2
See 2:224 and the corresponding note 212, which shows that in certain
circumstances an oath should be broken and then atoned for: hence the
above phrase, "God has enjoined upon you the breaking and
expiation" (with the term tahillah comprising
both these concepts).
3
See surah 2, note 21.
4
Lit., "he turned aside from [or "avoided"] some of it".
There is no reliable Tradition as to the subject of that confidential
information. Some of the early commentators, however, connect it with the
Prophet's veiled prediction that Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab
would succeed him as leaders of the Muslim community; the recipient of the
information is said to have been Hafsah, the daughter
of Umar, and the one to whom she disclosed it, A'ishah, the daughter of Abu Bakr
(Baghawi, on the, authority of Ibn
Abbas and Al-Kalbi; also Zamakhshari). If this interpretation is correct, it would
explain why the Prophet "acquainted [others] with some of it and passed
over some of it": for, once his confidential prediction had been divulged,
he saw no point in withholding it any longer from the community; nevertheless,
he alluded to it in deliberately vague terms- possibly in order not to give to
the succession of Abu Bakr and Umar
the appearance of all "apostolic sanction" but to leave it, rather to
a free decision of the community in pursuance of the Qur'anic
principle amruhum shura
baynahum (see 42:38).
5
I.e., that she had broken the Prophet's confidence.
6
Although in the sequence the Prophet is referred to in the third person, it is
obvious that it is he who is commanded through revelation to speak thus to his
wives Hafsah and A'ishah
(see note 4); hence my above interpolation.
7
Referring to Hafsah, who betrayed the Prophet's
confidence, and to A'ishah, who by listening contributed
to this betrayal (see note 4 above).
8 Lit., "after that", i.e., in consequence of the fact
that God Himself protects him.
9
For this rendering of the expression sa'ihat,
see note 147 on 9:112, where the same expression occurs in the masculine
gender relating to both men and women.
10
I.e., like the actual wives of the Prophet, one of whom ("A'ishah) was a virgin when she married him, one (Zaynab bint Jahsh)
had been divorced, while the others were widows. This allusion, together with
the fact that the Prophet did not divorce any of his wives, as well as
the purely hypothetical formulation of this passage, shows that it is meant to
be an indirect admonition to the Prophet's wives, who, despite their occasional
shortcomings - unavoidable in human beings - did possess the virtues referred
to above. On a wider plane, it seems to be an admonition to all believers,
men and women alike: and this explains the subsequent change in the discourse.
11
Lit., "your families" or "your people"; however, the term ahl denotes also people who share one's race,
religion, occupation, etc., as well as "dependants" in the most
comprehensive sense of this word (Jawhari, Raghib; also Mughni).
12
See surah 2, note 16.
13
See 74:27 ff. and the corresponding notes, particularly notes 15 and 16, in
which I have tried to explain the allegorical meaning of that passage.
14
I.e., these angelic powers are subject to the God-willed law of cause and
effect which dominates the realm of the spirit no less than the world of
matter.
15
I.e., "do not try to rationalize your deliberate denial of the truth"
- the element of conscious intent being immplied in the past-tense phrase alladhina kafaru (see
note 6 on 2:6).
16
Sc., "since no human being, however imbued with faith, can ever remain
entirely free from faults and temptations".
17
The implication is that He will not only "not shame" the Prophet and
his followers but will, on the contrary, exalt them: an idiomatic turn
of phrase similar to sayings like "I shall let you know something that
will not be to your detriment" - i.e., "something that will benefit
you".
18
Cf. 57:12 and the corresponding note 12.
19
Lit., "Complete for us our light", i.e., by making it permanent.
20
See note 101 on 9:73, which is identical with the above verse.
21
Lit., "and both betrayed them", i.e., their respective husbands. The
story of Lot's wife and her spiritual betrayal of her husband is mentioned in
the Qur'an in several places; see, in particular,
note 66 on 7:83 and note 113 on 11:81. As regards Noah's wife, the above is the
only explicit reference to her having betrayed her husband; it would seem,
however, that the qualification of "those on whom [God's] sentence has
already been passed" in 11:40 applies to her no less than to her son
(whose story appears in 11:42-47).
22
The "parable" (mathal) of these two
women implies, firstly, that even the most intimate relationship with a truly
righteous person - even though he be a prophet - cannot save an unrepentant
sinner from the consequences of his sin; and, secondly, that a true believer
must cut himself off from any association with "those who are bent on
denying the truth" even if they happen to be those nearest and dearest to
him (cf. 11:46).
23
Cf. 28:8-9.
24
I.e., a descendant of the House of 'lmran (cf.
the last third of note 22 on 3:33).
25 I.e., into the as yet unborn child (Razi,
thus explaining the pronoun in fihi).
For an explanation of the much-misunderstood allegorical phrase, "We
breathed of Our spirit into it", see note 87 on
21:91.
26
For the meaning of God's "words" (kalimat),
see note 28 on