Ahsan Hanif – Quran Tafseer – Page 80 – Dont Treat Your Women With Harshness
AI: Summary ©
The importance of inheritance and witnessing in disputes regarding someone's actions is discussed in Islam. The use of fixed shares and punishment in cases of sexually transmitted transmission is emphasized, along with the importance of seeking forgiveness and setting boundaries in order to achieve their potential. The speaker emphasizes the need for definite actions to avoid regret and the importance of forgiveness in obtaining Islam's favors, such as forgiveness for sin and avoiding sin in the future. The use of hesitation and forgiveness are also discussed, along with issues related to marriage and the importance of understanding and forgiveness in relationships.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome to another episode of our tafsir page
by page and Insha'Allah Ta'ala. Today we are
on page number 80 which is in Surah
Al Nisa
the 4th Jews.
In the previous episode we spoke about the
verses
in which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives to
us a number of rulings concerning inheritance
and especially with regards to the fixed shares
that Allah has given to certain relatives of
the deceased and as we mentioned
last episode and the one before it, Allah
when it comes to inheritance,
has set out certain shares that are fixed.
Those shares that are fixed,
those people receive that amount depending upon,
who else may or may not be living
at that time. But Allah has fixed shares
for them. So for example the husband and
the wife the husband depending on whether there
are children of the wife or not will
either receive a half or a quarter
and the wife if she is the survivor
from the husband depending on whether he has
any children or not will either receive a
quarter or an eighth. And so in this
way, this is how inheritance works. Allah gives
fixed shares to people and then it is
also dependent upon who else is living or
not. Sometimes those shares may decrease as a
result of other people there and sometimes those
people may simply be blocked and removed from
the inheritance line because there are people who
are more worthy and closer and therefore have
more right to the deceased's estate than they
do.
And then we have those male relatives that
receive as we said everything
that remains. Allah Azzawajal told us as we
mentioned in the last verse that these are
the laws of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and
to obey Allah and his Messenger salallahu alaihi
wa sallam in those laws is the way
and the path to success and to disobey
Allah and to disobey the Messenger
and
to ignore the laws of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala or to transgress
beyond the bounds that Allah
has set then that is the way to
destruction and humility,
humiliation
and loss.
So today we begin with verse 15 and
that is the statement of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
If any of your women commit zina,
a lewd act, then call 4 witnesses
from among you. Then if they testify to
their guilt, keep the women at home until
death comes to them or until Allah shows
them another way. Allah subhanhu wa ta'ala here
speaks now concerning the issue of Zina
and one of the rulings that Allah has
placed thereon for those people who commit this
particular major sin in Islam.
Zina
particularly here is being spoken about concerning the
woman who commits adultery. She's a married woman
and she commits adultery.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala at the beginning of
his stamp this is the ruling that was
given. The first thing to remember is that
when it comes to Zina Allah says that
the way that that is established
is that you need to have witnesses.
And when it comes to this issue of
Zina,
there needs to be 4
witnesses that are trustworthy, that have integrity,
and those 4 witnesses must testify
that they saw that person engaged
in the act of zena so it's not
just a doubt or suspicion
or that this person went to a secluded
place or we saw them enter into that
room or that house or that place. No,
they must actually bear witness and testify invoking
the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
that they saw the actual act of zina
taking place. That is what it means by
call these 4 witnesses before you And if
they do not
or there are not 4 witnesses
and someone makes an accusation
against a woman
or a man, that is called Qadhf in
Islam. It is called slander.
And the person who commits that type of
slander under Islamic law and obviously,
you know, for for many of us that
are living in the west, we don't have
Islamic law. And so therefore, with these issues,
you don't take the laws of Islam into
your own hands. You are not the judge
the Muslim ruler or his deputy that you
must enact these laws within your own families
or communities and so on. That type of
vigilante justice isn't something that we have in
our religion.
However, we are speaking about it from the
point of view of these are the verses
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala these are the
laws that you would have if you were
to follow the Quran and the Sunnah as
a
judicial system within a Muslim country. What they
would do is if a person commits
slander towards another person, accuses them of being
unchaste of committing adultery and that person doesn't
have the requisite evidence
that they need to bring, just as you
have defamation
in many countries now,
we have slander and that person would be
lashed 80 times for that type of
crime. So therefore these four witnesses must have
witnessed
the act of Zina and that is why
it is something which is extremely rare that
you will find a person to be in
that situation.
So even in the time of the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where the punishment of Zina
was enacted,
it was usually or in every case that
came before the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to
the best of my knowledge and Allah knows
best, it was due to confession
as opposed to evidence and witnesses.
And so it was due to confession, those
people would come and they would confess and
the Prophet would ask them multiple times if
they confessed and then he would make sure
that there were no obstacles to that confession,
that that person wasn't, for example,
mentally unwell, didn't have any other issues going
on, didn't make a mistake, didn't and so
once he was sure then he would establish
upon them the punishment.
So no case came before him in which
4 witnesses were able to corroborate this. However,
if that happens, at the beginning of Islam,
Allah 'Azza wa Jalal was saying that for
the women, their punishment, if they are found
to be guilty of this, is that they
are simply imprisoned in their homes and they
must stay there until death
or until Allah sets out a way for
them, a different way for them.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did set out
a different way as is mentioned in the
hadith
of a believer in Surabah that Musalamat radiAllahu
an that the Prophet sallallahu ani wa sallam
said,
take from me, take from me, he said,
for indeed Allah has given to them another
way
and then he established the rules and the
laws that we know of Zina as we
know them now and that is that if
a person is is in a marriage and
they commit adultery,
then that person that commits adultery in that
way, they would be storm to death. And
if a person is a virgin, meaning they're
not in a marriage and they haven't been
married before and that person is a virgin,
then for them, they would be lashed 100
times. And so
therefore, the law
was changed or amended to that. At the
beginning of Islam, it was this verse, verse
number 15
in Surat Al Nisa that the women would
simply be imprisoned
in their homes and not allowed to leave
until death came to them or until Allah
gave them a different way and then Allah
did so and that law applies both to
men and women.
In verse number 16, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
then says,
If 2 men commit a lewd act then
punish them both if they repent and mend
their ways leave them alone for indeed Allah
is always
ready to accept repentance
and He is full of mercy.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying that if
2 people
from you, men and women, they perform this
true type of act or they do something
which isn't zina but they do other types
of acts which are
which are unbecoming, which don't go to the
act of Zina, but maybe they are the
the precursors to that act of Zina, then
you should punish them for that meaning that
you should punish them in a way which
is obviously less than the penal punishment of
Zina but you should punish them in a
way that they therefore understand that what they
have done is a sin and that it
is something which is displeasing to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
until they repent or unless they repent. If
a person repents then Allah azza wa Jal
is al ghafur and ar Rahim and so
therefore for a person to repent to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala is something which they must
do for every sin that they commit, every
sin that a person commits they turn to
Allah
and they make sincere repentance to Allah
and from that sincere repentance to Allah
is that they abandon that sin that they
were upon and they show their regret and
they have that firm determination
that by Allah's will they will never return
to that sin again and then if they
happen to sin again genuinely
then Allah is willing to accept that repentance
a second time and a third time and
multiple times from his
mercy and forgiveness subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But a person must be sincere in the
repentance that they make to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And that is why Allah
in these in the next couple of verses
speaks about this issue of repentance.
So people may sin even in the time
of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as
said there were people who committed Zina, people
who stole,
people who committed murder,
people sin and they make those mistakes and
they commit those crimes and that is why
we have in Islam laws for this just
as every society
has laws for these types of eventualities
and these types of cases. And the Quran
is a book that deals with all of
these issues because it is the book of
guidance, it is the book that the Muslim
goes to to find guidance in all of
their affairs whether it is personal, whether it
is spiritual, whether it is to do with
their family or their wealth and whether it
is to do with or whether it is
to do with their society and the way
that they should
judge and rule between people and the way
that they should conduct their affairs within their
societies and so therefore the Quran speaks about
these issues but often you will find when
Allah speaks about these major sins in Islam
such as zina,
such as murder,
such as
theft in which there are harsh punishments
that Allah 'Azza wa Jal places upon those
people who commit those crimes, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala always opens the door for Tawba. You
will find this very common. As Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala does here, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says these people as we know they have
a harsh punishment in Islam for the sin
that they have committed. But Allah says to
them and if they turn to Allah and
they repent to Allah
then leave them alone
because they have turned to Allah in repentance.
And so therefore Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala always
opens up the door for repentance for the
believers.
So no matter how great the sin, no
matter how grave the crime may be, a
person can always turn to Allah azza wa
Jal and make tawba so long as they
do so before death comes to them. That
door is always open for them and the
Muslim is actively encouraged to turn to Allah
azza wa Jal in making Tawbah as the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam will constantly seek
the forgiveness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
ask him for his repentance.
In verse number 17, Allah
then says:
Allah only undertakes to accept repentance from those
who do evil out of ignorance
and soon afterwards repent. These are the ones
Allah will forgive his all knowing and He
is All Wise. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
that the true repentance or the one that
Allah accepts is the one who fits this
description.
When a person repents to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, it is from Allah's favor
and it is from Allah's grace and bounty
that me and you are able to make
repentance or repent to Him and make tawba.
Allah
blesses us in 2 ways in the act
of tawba. Number 1, he gives us the
ability to make the act of Tawba
that is that we recognize
that we've sinned, that we've done wrong, that
we need to turn to Allah azza wa
Jal and that we recognize that we have
a Lord that is all forgiving, all merciful,
all kind, all gentle. And so Allah gives
us that ability to have that realisation,
to have the sorrow and the grief that
we feel within ourselves for the sin that
we've committed and then to turn to make
this act of tawbah
and then number 2 Allah's second blessing upon
us is that Allah accepts that tawbah if
it is repentance Allah accepts that repentance if
it is sincere and so Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala favors us in these ways So we
sin
and we disobey Allah. From Allah's mercy and
gentleness and forgiveness is that he then allows
us to understand
what we've done or recognize Allah's favors acknowledge
that Allah is all forgiving and so turn
to him subhanahu wa ta'ala and then from
Allah's further favor is that he subhanahu wa
ta'ala forgives us for our sins. Allah
says that those who do evil are of
ignorance, ignorance
because Shaitan overcame them
and overpowered them and his whisperings
overpowered them or ignorance because they did it
not really understanding the true
evil of what they've done or the punishment
that Allah has placed upon them. So they
do it because they overcome
by their weaknesses, by their weak iman, by
the temptations of the dunya, by the whisperings
of Shaitan and they sin by Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, they don't do it out of
hatred, they don't do it out of malice,
they don't do it out of anything like
this
and they are actively people who are remorseful
and so therefore as they are remorseful they
turn back to Allah Azza wa Jal, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
and then they turn to Allah and soon
repent afterwards. The scholars said some of them
said that as soon as they sin, at
their first viable opportunity they turn back to
Allah as a general repentance. And that is
something which is a good practice. It is
a good habit to develop for yourself if
you don't already have it. And that is
that every time you sin, you turn to
Allah 'azawjal in repentance as opposed to letting
them accumulate.
Letting these sins build over weeks months years
and saying I will insha Allah make tawba
once or I will
go for Hajj and ask Allah for forgiveness
for everything because none of us have that
guarantee.
Another scholar said, no, what it means to
soon repent meaning as long as it is
done before the time of death and both
of those meanings are correct. So long as
a person isn't breathing their last or risen
on their deathbed,
the door of of
or their soul is not about to leave
their body rather the door of repentance is
open for them
and also it is from good practice
and it is from the way of the
believer that they turn to Allah soon after
they have committed that sin. And that is
because no one has a guarantee that someone
could die suddenly, You may not necessarily be
in that situation where you can understand that
your life is coming to an end. You
are on your deathbed. You have a terminal
illness. It may well be that you die
in a sudden way, unexpectedly.
And so therefore it is from good practice
to make Tawbah, as the Prophet said
in the Hadith
Every single child of Adam commits sins and
the best of those who sin are those
who weep when you repent to Allah azza
wa jal, and Allah loves those who make
Tawbah. Allah loves those who seek repentance. Allah
ajawajal says in the Quran, 'Inn Allah yuhibbutawabin
Allah loves those who continuously and frequently repent
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. As the Prophet
told us salallahu alayhi wasallam that Allah azza
wa Jal if you meaning us as humans
didn't sin and turned to Allah in repentance,
then Allah azza wa Jal would have taken
you away, would have removed you all and
he would have bought another creation that does
sin so that they may turn to Allah
Azzawajal in repentance and that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala may forgive them. That is how Allah
loves people who repent because Allah knows our
weaknesses and Allah knows that we are people
of sin. That is not the problem.
The problem is when we don't turn to
Allah Azza wa Jal's forgiveness and mercy. And
so Allah loves us when we show our
humility,
our humbleness, our need, our poverty before him
subhanahu wa ta'ala and we turn to him
seeking repentance. And that is why the Prophet
Sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
that indeed Allah
is more happy when one of you makes
Tawbah to him than the one who is
travelling in the desert and he loses all
his provisions, his animal runs
away goes and runs away
with all his food and water and he's
left him for dead thinks he's going to
die
and then he lies down thinking that's the
end and then he wakes
up and he sees that the animal has
returned and he grabs those rings.
And he is so happy and so overcome
by joy. Allah is more happy than that
individual who is on the precipice of death,
thought that there was no possible way for
him to survive now in the desert
and then with that with very little effort
of his own,
he wakes up to find that his animal
has returned with all of his food and
all of his water. And that is exactly
what we do when we sin, we sin
and we disobey Allah Azza Wa Jal. The
act of Tawbah takes very little in terms
of effort and time
but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is so happy
that Allah Azza wa Jal forgives the people
who turn to him in the act of
Tawbah and repentance.
However those people who don't do this in
verse number 18 Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks
about the second type of person
and those are the people who do not
repent to Allah Azza wa Jal or their
repentance is insincere.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:
It is not true repentance, Allah says, when
people continue to do evil
until death confronts them and they say, 'Now
I repent,'
nor when they die defiant. We have prepared
a painful torment for these people.
Allah
says, it is not true repentance.
Those people who continuously sin and disobey Allah
until
the moment of death is upon them. The
Prophet told
us
that Allah
has kept the door of repentance open
so long as 2 things do not happen.
The
first is that your soul is not about
to leave your body. A person knows now,
right now, death is coming to me. So
they turn to Allah and they say, oh
Allah, repent. That person is only doing it
now because they know that their life is
over. They know that there's nothing left for
them in the dunya and so that is
a level of insincerity and repentance. Or number
2, that Yomul Qiyama is being established, the
sun is rising from the west and Yomul
Qiyama is coming and again they know that
this is the end of this world and
now they can see the signs of Allah
are true. Both of those people have come
to understand their reality by force as opposed
to by choice
and so therefore Allah does not accept that
type of repentance. So therefore Allah is saying
here that these people don't show remorse in
their life, they don't turn to Allah Azza
wa Jal, they don't make Tawbah, they don't
seek forgiveness
and some of them just hope that Allah
will forgive
and some of them expect that Allah will
forgive as if they have some type of
guarantee. Allah says that those people who wait
until there is the moment of death and
then they say 'Inni TUBTul Aam'
now I repent of Allah, those people Allah
says that is not true repentance,
nor is it repentance to die upon this
belief in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which shows
therefore
that in order for a person's repentance and
forgiveness to be correct and to be accepted
by Allah Azza wa Jal they must have
iman in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala they must
believe in Allah Azza wa Jal and worship
him alone Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Those people Allah says these types of people
whose repentance is insincere
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that they will
have a painful torment.
So therefore Tawbah is from the most beloved
of deeds to Allah Azza wa Jal, one
that we should be actively engaged in, one
that we should be constantly aware of and
one that we should use those times and
places in which our du'as are more likely
to be accepted, times and places that are
beloved to Allah 'Azza wa Jal to increase
in the acts of seeking forgiveness and making
tawbah. So for example, the month of Ramadan
and especially those last 10 nights of Ramadan
as we seek later Qadab, For example, when
a person goes for Umrah, performing Hajj and
standing on the day of Arafah,
these moments, these places, these times are virtuous
times and there are times in which a
person should be more so and more active
and more engaged in asking Allah Azza wa
Jal for his forgiveness, asking Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala to repent upon them. The final verse
that we will take today
is verse number 19 on this page and
that is the statement of Allah
O you who
believe, it is not lawful for you to
inherit women against their will nor should you
treat your wives harshly,
hoping to take back some of the vital
gift that you gave to them unless they
are guilty of something clearly outrageous
live with them in accordance with what is
fair and kind if you dislike them it
may well be that you dislike something which
Allah
has put much good. This verse Allah again
speaks about the rights
of the women
in a couple of affairs and Allah Azzawajal
will go on to speak about issues concerning
marriage
after this particular verse and we will cover
those Insha'Allah
in the next episode. Allah
says it is not permissible for you to
inherit from your wives or to inherit from
your women folk without
their consent
against their will. As we said before that
the Arabs would take their wealth without any
justice or without any due right or cause.
So the woman inherits from her husband, she
inherits from her father, she inherits maybe from
her brother or from her son and this
man who comes because he is her guardian
or is stronger or is more powerful and
he takes that from her. Or
in another case in which there is a
pressure towards women is that this is now
the husband and the wife and the husband
has agreed to give her a dowry of
£10,000
£1,000
and then he starts to manipulate her, put
pressure on her, harm her so that she
will forgive him for all of the dowry
or some of the dowry
or she will gift some of it back
to him if he's already paid and so
on. These are types of harms that Allah
Azzawajal says that are not allowed in Islam.
Don't behave and treat your women
in this way rather what you should do
is live with them in a way that
is good, in a way that is kind,
in a way that is gentle.
So therefore in marriages,
in these types of relationships,
we have rights as men, they have rights
as women and so we have to be
able to understand the rights that are for
us and the rights that are upon us
and they also have to understand the same
and then within those relationships, we must also
come to the understanding
that sometimes I can't fulfill all of my
rights and sometimes they can't fulfill all of
their rights. So there is a level of
forgiveness, of
compassion, of understanding,
of being easy going in the sense that
I know sometimes my wife can't do everything
that she is meant to do and she
knows that me as a husband sometimes I
fall short, I have shortcomings, I can't fulfill
all of my rights and responsibilities,
But we see the bigger picture and we
see the greater benefit and good for our
sake and for our families and so we
forgive and pardon as people have to do
in all of their relationships.
Sometimes parents with their children,
siblings, friends, you have these issues where people
don't fulfill your rights or they harm you
or they oppress you or they wrong you
and so to do something which is good
in terms of forgiving and pardoning is something
which is recommended in Islam unless obviously that
person is just being outright oppressive and harmful
and violent that is a different issue and
that is why Allah
says that maybe you may dislike certain things
concerning them but perhaps Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has placed within them a greater good for
you.
And so that's the same thing as the
Prophet SAW
said to the men, he said your wives,
even if you dislike one thing about them,
you will like many others. That's nature. That's
just natural.
And they too, even if they dislike something
about us, they will like many other things.
No one is perfect. No one has everything.
And so therefore, there are certain things that
each person has which are negatives and drawbacks
and other things which are strengths and benefits.
And so you may dislike certain things but
if that person overall is good in their
religion, good in their character, good in fulfilling
their rights, good in the way that they
live with you, perhaps Allah will place blessings
in you in terms of your children, your
wealth and InshaAllah Ta'ala and many other affairs.
And with that InshaAllah Ta'ala we come to
the end of today's episode.