Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 33 Al-Ahzab, Ayat 37-40

وَاِذۡ تَقُوۡلُ لِلَّذِىۡۤ اَنۡعَمَ اللّٰهُ عَلَيۡهِ وَاَنۡعَمۡتَ عَلَيۡهِ اَمۡسِكۡ عَلَيۡكَ زَوۡجَكَ وَاتَّقِ اللّٰهَ وَتُخۡفِىۡ فِىۡ نَفۡسِكَ مَا اللّٰهُ مُبۡدِيۡهِ وَتَخۡشَى النَّاسَ ​ۚ وَاللّٰهُ اَحَقُّ اَنۡ تَخۡشٰٮهُ ؕ فَلَمَّا قَضٰى زَيۡدٌ مِّنۡهَا وَطَرًا زَوَّجۡنٰكَهَا لِكَىۡ لَا يَكُوۡنَ عَلَى الۡمُؤۡمِنِيۡنَ حَرَجٌ فِىۡۤ اَزۡوَاجِ اَدۡعِيَآئِهِمۡ اِذَا قَضَوۡا مِنۡهُنَّ وَطَرًا ؕ وَكَانَ اَمۡرُ اللّٰهِ مَفۡعُوۡلًا‏ ﴿33:37﴾ مَا كَانَ عَلَى النَّبِىِّ مِنۡ حَرَجٍ فِيۡمَا فَرَضَ اللّٰهُ لهٗ ؕ سُنَّةَ اللّٰهِ فِى الَّذِيۡنَ خَلَوۡا مِنۡ قَبۡلُ ؕ وَكَانَ اَمۡرُ اللّٰهِ قَدَرًا مَّقۡدُوۡرَا  ۙ‏ ﴿33:38﴾ اۨلَّذِيۡنَ يُبَـلِّـغُوۡنَ رِسٰلٰتِ اللّٰهِ وَيَخۡشَوۡنَهٗ وَلَا يَخۡشَوۡنَ اَحَدًا اِلَّا اللّٰهَ ؕ وَكَفٰى بِاللّٰهِ حَسِيۡبًا‏ ﴿33:39﴾ مَا كَانَ مُحَمَّدٌ اَبَآ اَحَدٍ مِّنۡ رِّجَالِكُمۡ وَلٰـكِنۡ رَّسُوۡلَ اللّٰهِ وَخَاتَمَ النَّبِيّٖنَ ؕ وَكَانَ اللّٰهُ بِكُلِّ شَىۡءٍ عَلِيۡمًا‏ ﴿33:40﴾

(33:37) (O Prophet),67 call to mind when you said to him68whom Allah had favoured and you had favoured: “Cleave to your wife and fear Allah,”69 and you concealed within yourself for fear of people what Allah was to reveal, although Allah has greater right that you fear Him.70 So when Zayd had accomplished what he would of her,71 We gave her in marriage to you72 so that there should not be any constraint for the believers regarding the wives of their adopted sons after they had accomplished whatever they would of them.73 And Allah's command was bound to be accomplished. (33:38) There could be no hindrance to the Prophet regarding what Allah ordained for him.74 Such has been Allah's Way (with the Prophets) who went before. Allah's command is a decree firmly determined.75 (33:39) (This is Allah's Way) regarding those who deliver the Messages of Allah and who fear Him, and fear no one else than Allah. Allah is Sufficient as a Reckoner.76 (33:40) Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the Prophets. Allah has full knowledge of everything.77


Notes

67. The discourse from here to ( verse 48) was sent down after the Prophet (peace be upon him) had married Zainab, and the hypocrites, the Jews and the mushriks had started a relentless propaganda campaign against him. While studying these verses one should bear in mind the fact that this divine discourse was not meant for the instruction of the enemies who were engaged in a willful campaign of vilification and slander and falsehood to defame the Prophet (peace be upon him) intentionally and to satisfy their rancor. But its real object was to protect the Muslims against the influence of their campaign and to safeguard them against doubts and suspicions. Evidently, the word of Allah could not satisfy the unbelievers. It could give peace of mind only to those who knew and believed it to be Allah’s word. There was a danger that those righteous people also might be confused and influenced by the objections that were being raised by their enemies. Therefore, on the one hand, Allah removed all possible doubts from their minds, and on the other, taught the Muslims as well as the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself how they should conduct themselves under the circumstances.

68. It refers to Zaid as has been mentioned clearly below. In order to understand how Allah and the Prophet (peace be upon him) had favored him, it is necessary here to relate his story briefly. He was the son of Harithah bin Shurahbil, a person of the Kalb tribe, and his mother, Suda bint Thalabah, was from the Bani Maan, a branch of the Tay tribe. When he was eight years old, she took him along to her parents. There the people of Bani Qain bin Jasr raided their camp, plundered their goods and took some men prisoners including Zaid. Then they sold Zaid at the fair of Ukiiz near Taif. His buyer was Hakim bin Hizam, a nephew of Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her). Hakim brought him to Makkah and presented him to his paternal aunt. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) married Khadijah, he found Zaid in her service and was so impressed by his good manners and conduct that he asked her to give Zaid to him. Thus, this fortunate boy entered the service of the best of men, whom Allah, after a few years, was going to appoint a Prophet (peace be upon him). Zaid at that time was 15 years old. Afterwards, when his father and uncle came to know that their child was at Makkah, they came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and requested him to return him in exchange for a payment. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “I shall call the boy and leave it to him whether he would like to go with you or stay with me. If he chose to go, I would take no payment but would let him go with you. However, if he chose to stay back, I am not the one who would send away a person who would like to stay with me.” They said, “This is perfectly right and just. Please ask the boy.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) called Zaid and asked him: “Do you know these two gentlemen?” He said, “Yes, this is my father and this is my uncle.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) then said, “Well, you know them as well as me. You have the choice to go with them, or stay with me if you so desire.” He said, “I have no wish to leave you and go with anyone else.” His father and uncle said: “Zaid, will you prefer slavery to freedom, and choose to stay with others in preference to your parents and family?” He replied, “After what I have seen of this person, I cannot prefer anything else of the world over him.” Hearing this reply, the father and uncle of Zaid were reconciled to his remaining with the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) set Zaid free immediately and proclaimed before a gathering of the Quraish in the Kabah, “Bear witness that hence forth Zaid is my son: he will receive inheritance from me and I from him.” Thereafter, he began to be called Zaid bin Muhammad by the people. All this happened before the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) advent as a Prophet. Then, when he was blessed with Prophethood by Allah, there were four persons who accepted his claim to it without a moment’s hesitation as soon as they heard of it from him. They were Khadijah, Zaid, Ali and Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with them all). Zaid was 30 years old then, and had already spent 15 years in the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) service. In the fourth year after Hijrah, the Prophet (peace be upon him) married him to his first cousin Zainab, paid her dower on his behalf and provided them with necessary articles for setting up the house.

This is to what Allah has alluded in the verse, saying: “Upon whom Allah has bestowed favor, and upon whom you (O Muhammad) have done favor.”

69. These words were said when the relations between Zaid and Zainab had become very strained, and after making repeated complaints Zaid had finally told the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he intended to divorce her. Although Zainab had accepted to be married to him in obedience to Allah and His Messenger’s command, she could not overcome her feeling that Zaid was a freed slave, who had been brought up by her own family, and she in spite of being the daughter of a noble Arab family, had been wedded to him. Due to this feeling she could never regard Zaid as her equal in matrimonial life, and this caused more and more bitterness between them. Thus after a little more than a year the marriage ended in divorce.

70. Some people have misconstrued this sentence to mean this: The Prophet (peace be upon him) desired to marry Zainab and wanted that Zaid should divorce her. But when Zaid came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said that he wanted to divorce his wife, the Prophet (peace be upon him) stopped him from this only half heartedly. At this Allah said: “You were keeping hidden in your heart that which Allah intended to reveal.” The real meaning, however, is contrary to this. If this the sentence is read with (verses 1, 2, 3 and7 of this Surah), one can clearly see that in the very days when bitterness was increasing between Zaid and his wife, Allah had hinted to His Prophet (peace be upon him) that when Zaid had divorced his wife, he would have to marry the divorced lady. But since the Prophet (peace be upon him) knew what it meant to marry the divorced wife of the adopted son in the contemporary Arab society, and that too at a time when apart from a handful of the Muslims the entire country had become jealous of him, he was hesitant to take any step in that direction. That is why when Zaid expressed his intention to divorce his wife, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to him, “Fear Allah and do not divorce your wife.” What he meant by this was that Zaid should not divorce his wife so that he was saved from facing the trial, otherwise in case the divorce was pronounced he would have to comply with the command, and thus provoke a severe storm of criticism and vilification against himself. But when the Prophet (peace be upon him) deliberately forbade Zaid to divorce his wife so that he himself might be saved from what he feared would cause him defamation, Allah found this below the high position that He wanted His Prophet to enjoy, whereas Allah intended to effect a great reform through this marriage of the Prophet. The words “And you feared the people, while Allah has more right that you should fear Him,” clearly point to the same theme.

The same explanation of this verse has been given by Imam Zain-ul-Aabedin Ali bin Husain (may Allah be pleased with him). He says, Allah had indicated to His Prophet (peace be upon him) that Zainab would be included among his wives. But when Zaid complained about her to him, the Prophet (peace be upon him) admonished him to fear Allah and keep his wife. At this Allah said to His Prophet, “I had informed you that I would give Zainab you to in marriage. But when you were forbidding Zaid to divorce his wife, you were hiding that which Allah was going to reveal.” (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir on the authority of Ibn Abi Hatim).

Allama Alusi in his Ruh-al-Maani has also given the same meaning of it. He says, “This is an expression of displeasure on abandoning the better course, which was that the Prophet (peace be upon him) should have kept quiet, or should have told Zaid to do as he liked. The displeasure amounted to this: “Why did you tell Zaid to keep his wife, whereas I had informed you beforehand that Zainab would be included among your wives?”

71. That is, Zaid divorced his wife and her waiting period came to an end. The words “So when Zaid had fulfilled his desire of her” by themselves give the meaning that Zaid was left with no desire attached to her. And this state of affairs does not appear on mere pronouncement of the divorce, because even during the waiting period the husband can take his wife back if he has any interest in her; and the husband also has this desire left with the divorced wife that it should become known whether she is pregnant or not. Therefore, the desire of her former husband with the divorced wife comes to an end only on the expiry of the waiting period.

72. These words are explicit that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had married Zainab not because of any personal desire but under the command of Allah.

73. These words clearly indicate that Allah accomplished this social reform through the Prophet (peace be upon him) to effect a great change which could not be enforced by any other means. There was no way to put an end to the wrong customs that had become prevalent in Arabia in respect of the adopted relations but that Allah’s Messenger himself should take initiative to abolish them. Therefore, Allah arranged this marriage not for the sake of adding a wife to the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) household but for enforcing an important social change.

74. These words show that for the other Muslims such a marriage is just permissible but for the Prophet (peace be upon him) it was a duty which Allah had imposed on him.

75. That is, for the Prophets it has always been a law that whatever command they receive from Allah, they have to act on it as a duty which they cannot in any case avoid. When Allah enjoins something on His Prophet (peace be upon him), he has to accomplish it even if the entire world is deadly opposed to it.

76. The words in the text have two meanings:

(1) That Allah is enough to counter every fear and danger; and,

(2) that Allah is enough to take account: none else but Allah should be feared for accountability.

77. This one sentence was at the root of all those objections which the opponents were raising in connection with this marriage of the Prophet (peace be upon him).

Their first objection was that he had married his own daughter-in-law, whereas according to his own law the son’s wife is forbidden for the father. This was answered by saying: “Muhammad is not the father of any of your men.” That is, Zaid was not his real son, and so it was not unlawful to marry his divorced wife.

Their second objection was that even if his adopted son was not his real son, it was not necessary that he should have married his divorced wife. This was answered by saying: “But he is the Messenger of Allah.” That is, it was his duty as the Messenger of Allah to put an end to all kinds of prejudices about a lawful thing which custom and tradition had made unlawful without good reason and declare it to be lawful once again.

The point was stressed by saying: “and (he is) the seal of the Prophets.” That is, not to speak of a Messenger, no other Prophet would be raised after him, who could make up for a possible deficiency in the enforcement of a reform in the law and society that might have been left un-enforced in his time. Therefore, it had become all the more necessary that he should himself root out the custom of ignorance.

Again, to further emphasize this point, it was said: “Allah has knowledge of everything.” that is, Allah knows best why it was imperative to get the custom of ignorance rooted out at that juncture through the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) rather than let it remain as it was. He knows that no other prophet would be coming after him in the future; therefore, if He did not abolish this custom through His last Prophet, no other person after him would be able to abolish it for all the Muslims of the world for ever. Even if the later reformers would abolish it, no action of any one of them will have the permanent and universal authority behind it so that the people of every country and every age might start following it, and none of them would have a personality endowed with that holiness and sanctity that an action’s being merely his way (Sunnah) might root out every feeling of aversion and abhorrence from the mind of the people.

It is a pity that a section of the people in our age have given wrong interpretations of this verse and opened the way to a great mischief. We have therefore added a comprehensive appendix at the end of the commentary of this Surah for the explanation of the question of the finality of Prophethood and the eradication of the misunderstanding spread by these people.