Quran Tafseer – Page 77 – Rights And Responsibilities
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AI Generated Summary ©
The Surah Al Nisa book on the first page of the Bible discusses issues of marriage, divorce, and the rights of others, including those from different faiths and community. The importance of fulfilling rights and kinship is emphasized, along with the need to be mindful of ties of kinship and avoiding seeking out one's wealth. The speakers emphasize the importance of not drinking from people's property and not seeking union with a orphan's father. The different types of people who have the ability to manage their finances are discussed, including male and female guardianies.AI Generated Transcript ©
We are going to cover page number 77
which is the first page
of the tafseer of Surah Al Nisa, the
4th Surah and chapter of the Quran.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this chapter in
Surah Al Nisa is a Surah that deals
with many of the issues with regards to
the
dealings of the muslim should have and the
way that the muslim should conduct themselves.
And it deals with a number of issues
concerning marriage and divorce and the rights of
orphans and the poor and the needy and
issues like inheritance.
And that's because it was very common in
the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam or before the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam bought Islam
in the times of Jahiliyyah the days of
ignorance pre Islam. It was very common that
the Arabs would oppress certain segments of their
society, certain groups within their communities
would be oppressed. From amongst them were women
and from amongst them were children, especially if
they were orphans.
And from amongst them were the poor and
the needy and the weak, the slaves and
others
within those societies.
And so those people would often be oppressed
by those who are stronger,
those who are who had more power, more
wealth, more influence within those societies.
And so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala sent Islam
as we know as a religion of mercy
and as a religion of justice. And so
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala writes
the wrongs that the Arabs had before Islam
came to them. And this is essentially a
surah that speaks about that. So if you
look at the,
the connection between the Surah that we've covered
so far,
as we mentioned when we started this
journey
Islamic State
of
Islam, the
that they should follow the sunnah of the
Prophet
and in terms of the conduct that they
should have with others. And then Surah Al
Baqarah elaborates on that first issue of belief
of how the Muslims internally and amongst themselves
should conduct themselves in issues of theology and
belief and between themselves.
And then Surah Al Rahman speaks about the
way that they should behave with regards
to outside influences or the wider community and
the wider society.
And that
speaks about a number of important factors therein
such as following the teachings of the Quran
and the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. And that's why as we
studied and seen in the previous episodes that
we've
had, Surah Al Imran a great passage or
a great deal of it deals with
the battle of Uhud
and the lessons and benefits that can be
derived from that.
So Surah Al Nisa now speaks about the
issue
of dealings how we deal with other people
and the conduct that we should have as
Muslims in our dealings and in our interactions
And that is because as we know as
humans,
every human and every person has rights that
belong to them and rights that they have
to fulfill
for others.
It is sometimes the case that people like
to receive all of their rights but when
it comes to fulfilling the rights of others
they are not very good in fulfilling those
rights. And so Islam addresses
that imbalance
and it tells people what is their rights
that Allah has given to them and what
are the rights of others that Allah has
afforded to them in a way that is
fair and just and practical because it looks
at the needs of people in society.
So this is a Madani surah, a surah
that was revealed after the hijrah of the
Prophet and
it is from the longest surahs of the
Quran, approximately 1 and a half Jews of
the Quran.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala begins this Surah by
saying,
Oh, people be mindful of your lord who
created you from a single soul and from
it created its mate and from the pair
of them spread countless men and women far
and wide. Be mindful of Allah in whose
name you make request of one another. Beware
of severing the ties of kinship. Allah is
always watching over you.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala begins his surah by
addressing all of mankind
and perhaps one of the reasons Allah knows
best is because this is one of those
issues
when it comes to dealing with the rights
of people that it's not just specific to
the Muslims
but it is something which all of society
has a right to And so therefore the
Muslim even with their within their dealings with
non Muslims,
with people who are of different faiths or
maybe even of no faith, they are still
rights that they have to fulfill to those
people. Especially if those people happen to be
related to them, their family members, or they
happen to be neighbors, or they happen to
be people that they have business partnerships with
or they're living within their community and they
happen to happen to be orphans and so
on. These people have rights And so Allah
addresses all of mankind and he addresses them
by saying
have taqwa.
Be mindful,
be conscious of, have fear of your lord,
the one who created you from a single
soul. And that single soul being our father
Adam alaihis salatu wa salam. And so Allah
shows to us his power, his ability
in creation.
And from it meaning from that single soul
Adam he created from it its mate and
that is our mother Hawa radiAllahu
and alaihi wasalam
and from them both.
He spread out countless men and women far
and wide. So all of us as we
know go back to Adam and Hawa Alayhim
Salat wa Salam and from them did Allah
create all of their progeny and all of
their offspring. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us
therefore of our origin
and that is because often one of the
reasons why there is oppression when it comes
to the way that we deal with others
and the way that we interact, one of
the main reasons or causes or justifications
that people give is because there is within
a person an inherent
understanding or belief that they have that they
are better than others or that they are
more worthy of this than others or that
they have more right to something than others
and that there needs to be unjust and
fair and oppression.
And so the rich consider themselves to have
certain favors
over and above those who are weak, Just
as the people in Arabia before the coming
of Islam and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
the men used to consider themselves to be
the warriors,
the soldiers,
the breadwinners
and so they would consider for example that
they had more right to the wealth of
inheritance
from their close family members
than people who were female and maybe were
even closely or more closely related to that
deceased individual.
So the mother,
the wife,
the daughter, the sister, these are close family
relations.
I may be a cousin but because I'm
the man and I'm the one who fights
and I'm the one who goes to war
and I'm the one who provides and I'm
the leader of the tribe, I consider myself
to be
more important than those female relations of the
deceased. This is how the Arabs used to
think and so Allah is saying remember that
ultimately all of you are the same,
equal in the sense that you all come
from the same man and woman. All of
you started in the same way. So even
now that you may have different tribes, this
person may be a non Arab, that person
may be a slave, this person may be
an orphan, and so you think that your
lineage is
nobler than the lineage of others and their
name and their family? That is not the
case because eventually all of you go back
to Adam and you essentially come from the
same parents.
And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds us
of this and then Allah says to us,
fear Allah, be mindful and conscious of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the one in whose name
the one whose name you invoke when you
make requests when you ask one another for
help. And so when someone comes and says
I ask you by Allah or ask you
in Allah's name to help me,
to to give me aid, to come to
my support, You request Allah you request that
help and aid in by the name of
Allah or in the name of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. Then surely therefore
you should also fulfill the commands of Allah
azza wa Jal, fulfill the rights that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given. You demand your
rights in the name of Allah
So likewise you should fulfill the rights of
others in the name of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and be mindful
of your ties of kinship And that is
because often
in many of these interactions and many of
these relationships,
the harm that takes place
and the fracturing that takes place is often
in a single family between family
members over issues like marriage and divorce
and inheritance. It is often the people of
the same family that are not going to
fall into dispute. They're going to break their
ties. They're going to cut off from one
another and stop talking to each other and
seeing one another because of that dispute that
they have over some type of property or
land or wealth. So be mindful of the
ties of kinship and that is because Islam
places a great deal of emphasis on the
rights of your relatives
as you know from the verses in the
Quran and also from the sunnah of the
Prophet
And so Allah
has given to our family members certain rights
and those rights
should be something which are more precious and
valuable to us than what is the materialistic
wealth of the Dunya.
Someone who is your parent,
your child, your sibling, your uncle, your aunt,
your grandparents
in some cases, these people are close to
you. They are the closest people that you
have, that you are meant to come to
the aid of and help and support,
and they are meant to come to your
aid and help and support as well.
So if you sever those types of kinship
then what remains within the society?
And that is because once the family bonds
begin to break and the bonds of close
family and relatives begin to break, then society
itself
and the communities themselves become fractured. And that's
something which we see increasingly in our days.
Before, when people had very strong
family links, then people would have a certain
element of shyness. That they wouldn't do certain
things because they know that they're going to
be constantly meeting with uncles and their aunts
and their grandparents and so on. And that
strong family bond makes people have a certain
level of character, a certain level of respect,
a certain level of religiosity or respect for
religion at the very least that they would
humble themselves before someone who is for example
worshipping
Allah or practices their religion and so on.
But when that family bond fractures,
you no longer see those people. You don't
really speak to them or worse you've broken
off for them because of some dispute,
then that factor that should be there no
longer exists.
Allah says,
Allah
is constantly watching over you.
In verse number 2 Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
then begins by mentioning or in the remainder
of this page or this passage Allah will
speak about a number of rights, a number
of rights that people should be mindful of
and these are almost like headlines or bullet
points in terms of these rights because these
are the main people
or a great number of them that are
often oppressed. The first of those rights that
people should be mindful of is the right
of the orphan. Allah says,
and
Do not consume their property with your own,
for indeed that is a great sin. This
is the first of the rites that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned. The orphan in Islamic
law is the one whose father has died
and they are still below the age of
puberty, they are still a child.
That child who loses the father even if
their mother is living
is considered to be an orphan under Islamic
law, and that is because their father would
usually be their main provider, their main guardian,
the one that would often carry a number
of their affairs and look after a number
of their public affairs. By the loss of
that parent, the male the male parent which
is the father, that person becomes an orphan.
And we know that our religion gives a
great status to the orphan in terms of
their care,
upbringing,
well-being
and it attaches a great reward for the
one who does so as is mentioned in
the famous Hadith of the Prophet
and the one who gives or sponsors an
orphan will be like these 2. And so
therefore the Prophet SAWHANIUM
gave to the orphan a great right. Allah
says here give to the orphans their wealth
that is their right. And that is because
sometimes the orphan
isn't necessarily poor, they have money. And that's
because the father that passed away leaving the
child an orphan or maybe both parents have
passed away,
that child inherits
from their parents.
And this is one of the things that
the Arabs wouldn't do because they would consider
that child are often weak.
So the the male
family member who is dominating
maybe an uncle, maybe the grandfather, maybe someone
else, an older sibling, whoever would come and
they would devour that wealth, they would take
it for themselves.
But by rights, it belongs to that child.
That child doesn't have the ability to use
that wealth, doesn't have the ability to go
and spend and and buy or invest or
whatever else and so their guardian
who looks after their affairs will look after
that wealth as well. But that wealth still
belongs to them and that is what Allah
says
give to them their wealth that belongs to
them.
Do not replace
good things with bad, meaning don't exchange halal
for haram
because the wealth that is theirs is haram
for you to devour.
And so instead of getting halal risk and
income and sustenance for yourself, what you will
do is you will take something which is
impure for you and that is the wealth
of the orphan.
Nor devour their wealth by consuming it with
your own property. So this child,
his parents have passed away. He inherits from
them, for example, £10,000.
I also have my own money. I have
my own property, my land. And I say
he's living with me. I'm going to look
after his affairs. We're kinda like all one
family now. And so I merge their money
the money together.
And so therefore, I'm spending from here and
I'm spending from there. And I'm using this
for my own benefit
and for his benefit. And I'm also
taking it and and and so I've essentially
mixed the 2 to the extent that I
don't know which one, what belongs to him
and what belongs to me because I haven't
accounted for it in that way. Allah 'Azza
wa Jal says don't do so because a
guardian is responsible for the well-being of the
wealth of that child.
That child, once they grow up and they
reach the ability to manage their own financial
affairs, that wealth goes back to them and
that is their right. To mix,
to devour, to consume their property. Allah says,
it is a great sin.
Allah
in verse number 3 he continues and he
says
If you fear that you will not deal
fairly with the orphan girls, you may marry
whichever woman
or whichever other women seem good to you
2, 3 or 4. If you feel that
you cannot be equitable to them, then marry
only 1 or your slaves that is more
likely to make you avoid bias. Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala says that
the guardian of the orphan, if the orphan
happens to be a girl, sometimes
he may marry that girl.
He helps her, gives her a good upbringing,
good
support,
looks after her affairs and so on. And
when she becomes a mature adult, if she
agrees and she is willing to, he may
marry her. And he gives her her fair
diary and he treats her well and he
is responsible towards
her. Obviously, as long as she's not a
for her and there's no obstacles towards that
marriage and so on, that is something which
is permissible. But something that the Arabs also
used to do is that they would marry
those girls
because they wouldn't have to give them their
diary. Or they would marry those girls simply
because then they know that this girl has
a great deal of wealth she inherited from
her parents, by marrying and becoming her husband
he can devour that wealth, he can take
from that wealth, he can benefit from that
wealth and so his intentions are not exactly
pure. His intentions are not exactly honorable and
so Allah said that if you fear that
this is the case then don't marry them
but marry from other women. Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala
mentions
to us in this verse that for a
man it is permissible for him to marry
up to 4 wives. Allah
says then marry from the other women what
seemed good to you 2, 3 or 4
And that is the maximum
that a man is allowed to marry. And
so he is able to marry more than
1 wife. So long as the condition is
mentioned here in this verse.
But if you feel that you cannot be
equitable to them, just towards them,
then stick to 1. And that is because
when you have
more than 1 spouse, more than 1 wife,
then you must be equal to them in
the way that you provide for them, in
the way
that you spend
time with them, dividing their nights between them
and so on. All of these issues as
we see from the son of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam because as we know he
had sallallahu alaihi wasallam more than 1 wife
and the way that he would treat them
and the way that he would spend time
with them and the way that he travel
with them,
spend upon them,
deal with them, especially when they amongst themselves
may sometimes have disagreements and so on. All
of that is well established and documented in
the Sunnah and in the books of Hadith.
That is how the husband must be. And
if he cannot do that or he fears
that he won't be able to do that,
that he will favor 1
unjustly over the others, then it is not
permissible to do so because that is also
a form of oppression.
That is also a form of oppression and
that is why the Prophet told
us
that whoever has more than one spouse, meaning
one wife, and he favors 1 justly over
the other, he will come on Yawmul Qiyama
with one of his cheeks drooping.
Meaning just as he leans towards one over
the other, one of his cheeks will lean
more than the other on the Day of
Judgement.
So Allah
says that you must be just and that
is the general principle rule
that underpins all of these interactions, all of
these dealings that we have whether it is
spousal
interactions, whether it is to do with children,
parents, siblings, family,
friends, business partners whatever it may be a
person should always be Just because Allah Azza
wa Jal has and loves Justice.
That is more likely in order to make
you avoid bias.
In verse number 4, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says continuing on this issue when it comes
to the rights of women.
And give women their bridle gift upon marriage
meaning their diary.
Though if they are happy to give up
some of it for you, you may enjoy
it with a clear conscience.
One of the things that the Arabs also
wouldn't do especially if the woman was a
weak family or she doesn't have a male
guardian or she's someone who is struggling to
look after her own affairs and stand up
for herself is that they wouldn't give her
a fair dowry.
They would be biased in the way that
they would treat her when it came to
issues of marriage. Or sometimes
the dowry that she would be given would
be consumed by her male guardian.
So the father takes her diary without her
consent and without her approval. Or the brother
comes and he takes from her diary. Or
the males come and they essentially take from
the diary. And you still find this among
some
Dari.
Or in some countries you still find this
which is the opposite that the woman's family
is the one paying the dowry to the
man's family. All of these are practices that
are not allowed in Islam, it does not
form our
Sharia. And so Allah is saying that when
it comes to marriage,
give the dawy that is owed to the
women,
give it to them and that is their
property. It's something which belongs to them. But
if they are happy to give up some
of it for you, So for example the
wife and the husband are going to get
married. The woman and the man. The man
says to her that your diary I will
give you £1,000.
Do you accept? Are you happy? She says
yes. And then after marriage, she says, you
know what? Actually, it's okay. We're going to
start a life together.
I owe only £500. £500 you can keep
because we've got to spend on the house
and the furniture and other things, it's fine.
And she does that willingly, it is permissible.
Or she receives that £1,000
and she says to her father, I have
respect for him, honor for him, wanting to
help him especially if he's elderly or someone
who needs financial assistance, I will give to
you some of my diary and she
does
so
willingly.
So if they do so willingly, happily,
then you may enjoy it with a clear
conscience.
Enjoy it and benefit from it. The problem
here is as Allah is saying at the
beginning of this verse
give to them their diaries meaning don't just
devour them without asking for their permission without
seeking their consent
out of injustice,
out of wanting simply to take their wealth
and devour it for yourselves, that is something
which Allah has made haram.
In verse number 5 Allah
then says
Do not entrust your property to the feeble
minded.
Allah has made it a means of support
for you. Make provision for them from it,
clothe them and address them kindly.
One of the groups of people that a
person sometimes becomes the guardian of and as
we can see all of these groups of
people that Allah
is mentioning so far have male guardians to
look after their interests and affairs. The orphan,
a woman who for example wants to get
married and now the people that are being
called
the feeble minded or the person who doesn't
have the ability,
the maturity to deal with their financial
affairs. These are of 2 types of people.
So when it comes all of these people
have male guardians. In this particular verse, we
are speaking about those people who don't have
the maturity, the intellectual maturity to deal with
their financial issues and they are of 2
types. Number 1, those who due to some
illness cannot do so. So maybe they have
a mental illness
that prevents them from being able to deal
with their financial affairs because they don't understand
money and they don't have the ability to
process that type of information.
And the second type of person is the
one who is too young yet to be
able to understand how to deal with them.
So the first one who has maybe a
mental illness may well be an adult. They
may be in their thirties, their forties. It
is just because of their illness that it
prevents them from being able to deal with
their financial affairs. In the second case,
this person is too young yet to be
able to understand the value of money and
how it should be dealt with in a
responsible way. Say for example you had a
child that's an orphan, a 67 year old
and their parents passed away but they were
wealthy So he inherits from them tens of
1,000 of pounds. If you were to give
that child tens of 1,000 of pounds and
you would say to him here's £50,
£100,
do what it what what you want with
it today. That child wouldn't be able to
understand.
They would go to a shop and if
that shopkeeper was dishonest, they would make them
buy that chocolate which is worth only a
pound or 2 for £50.
And that child would happily give them because
for them, the chocolate's the main thing. They
just want that sugar rush, They want that
sweet. They want that chocolate, that candy. That's
all they're looking for. And the notes that
they're giving, this piece of paper that they
have or these coins in their hands
have no significance to them.
They don't really understand
their worth or their value. These people are
called feeble minded for one of those two
reasons.
Allah
says that to their guardian, those people who
are responsible for their affairs,
don't give over their wealth to them until
you see from them the ability that they
can manage those affairs. But rather what you
should do from their wealth is that you
should provide for them, clothe them and speak
to them in a good way. So Allah
says
that this orphan and that's not always the
case because sometimes the orphan has no money,
the orphan is poor. In which case a
person needs to spend over the orphan from
his own wealth. But that is not always
the case. It is sometimes a misconception
that every orphan will be poor. And that's
why sometimes people say we want to give
Zakah to the orphan. That's only allowed if
the orphan is poor. Because sometimes those orphans,
their parents left them a great deal of
wealth and inheritance. They don't need to do
zakah. In fact, they will be giving zakah
through their guardians from the wealth that they
have themselves. And so therefore Allah azza wa
jal is saying here that the guardian is
responsible
for their upkeep,
for their well-being,
for managing their financial affairs, if he is
someone who has the ability to invest some
of that money in a way that's going
to be good and beneficial
in a non risk way or not a
high risk way, a very low risk way,
that is something which they should do, they
should look after the affairs of that child.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then says in the
final verse on this page,
verse number 6.
Test the orphans until they reach marriageable age.
Then if you find them to have sound
judgment, hand over their property to them. Do
not consume it hastily before they come of
age. If the guardian is well off, he
should abstain from the orphan's property and if
he is poor, he should use it in
a way that is fair. When you give
them their property call witnesses in. Indeed Allah
takes full accounting of everything that you do.
So in the previous verse Allah Azzawaj said
don't give them their wealth because they don't
have the ability to manage their financial affairs.
When does that continue to? Until they reach
a marriageable age. So now they have the
maturity. There is the age of puberty
and the age of maturity. And they are
not necessarily one and the same thing. A
child may hit puberty at the age of
11 or 12, but they still don't have
the ability to manage their financial affairs fully.
But a child that you would normally be
married, maybe at the age of 17, 18,
19 now they're looking to get married, that
child normally or that young adult now normally
has the ability to deal with their financial
affairs and I understand
the value of money and what it means
to save and to spend and to buy
and to invest and so on. And so
Allah is saying that if you unsure test
them, give them a small amount of money,
see what they do and see how they
deal with it
and that will allow you to determine their
readiness or lack thereof. Allah says that if
you are from amongst those people who are
guardians of those orphans or those people who
are feeble minded
don't devour their wealth
If you are wealthy then leave their wealth
alone and Allah has provided for you and
if you are poor and they are wealthy
then it is allowed for you to take
from that wealth that which you need in
order to be able to
look after them as well. But you do
it in a way that is just and
fair not to totally consume it or to
take more than what is your need, Allah
says and then eventually when you come to
giving and handing over that wealth, then have
witnesses that see that that transaction has taken
place so that there will be no
doubt with regards to your intentions and with
regards to your actions.
So these verses, these first six verses as
we see, Allah
has established already a number of principles
when it comes to the rights of these
segments of society and the community that are
often oppressed. Their rights are taken away because
for one reason or another they don't have
the ability to manage their own affairs. Allah
therefore calls upon their guardians who are often
males that they should fulfill their function and
their role in a way that shows that
they are mindful of Allah
and have the fear of Allah and with
episode.
episode.