Researcher’s Companion to Ghamidi’s Al-Bayan: Surah Baqarah (222-232) |
Shehzad Saleem
I. Meaning & Morphology (الصرف و اللغة)
1. ‘قَرْءٌ’ The word ‘قَرْءٌ’ is among those words of the Arabic language which are classed as ‘اَضْدَاد’ (antithetical words). They are words which have two meanings entirely opposite to one another. It is the context which determines the shade of meaning in which they are used. Example of such words are ‘بَيْع’ which means both ‘sale’ and ‘purchase’, and ‘اَسَرَّ’ which means both ‘to reveal’ and ‘to conceal’.
As
pointed out by Ghamidi (note: 14), the context readily suggests that the
word ‘قَرْءٌ’
here means ‘حَيْض’
(the period of menstruation) and not ‘طُهْر’
(the period of purity)1.
قُلْ إِنَّمَا أَعِظُكُمْ بِوَاحِدَةٍ (46:34) Say: ‘‘I do admonish you on one point’’. (34:46)
1.
Tadmin in ‘يُؤْلُونَ
مِنْ نِسَائِهِمْ’
2.
Khabr li al-Amr
The verb ‘بَلَغَ’ is used in this sense in ‘وَإِذَا طَلَّقْتُمْ النِّسَاءَ فَبَلَغْنَ أَجَلَهُنَّ’ (2:231). In other words it implies the sense ‘about to reach’. In the very next verse: ‘وَإِذَا طَلَّقْتُمْ النِّسَاءَ فَبَلَغْنَ أَجَلَهُنَّ فَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ’, (2:232) it is used in its conventional meaning.
المسألة الثالثة: اختلف المفسرون في أن قوله: {فلا تعضلوهن} خطاب لمن؟ فقال الأكثرون إنه خطاب للأولياء، وقال بعضهم إنه خطاب للأزواج، وهذا هو المختار، الذي يدل عليه أن قوله تعالى: {وإذا طلقتم النساء فبلغن أجلهن فلا تعضلوهن} جملة واحدة مركبة من شرط وجزاء، فالشرط قوله: {وإذا طلقتم النساء فبلغن أجلهن} والجزاء قوله: {فلا تعضلوهن} ولا شك أن الشرط وهو قوله: {وإذا طلقتم النساء} خطاب مع الأزواج، فوجب أن يكون الجزاء وهو قوله: {فلا تعضلوهن} خطاباً معهم أيضاً، إذ لو لم يكن كذلك لصار تقدير الآية: إذا طلقتم النساء أيها الأزواج فلا تعضلوهن أيها الأولياء وحيئنذٍ لا يكون بين الشرط وبين الجزاء مناسبة أصلاً وذلك يوجب تفكك نظم الكلام وتنزيه كلام الله عن مثله واجب The commentators disagree regarding the addressees of the words ‘فَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ’. Most of them are of the opinion that the expression addresses the guardians of the divorced women. Some commentators, however, do say that these words address the husbands. I also subscribe to this opinion. The reason is that the verse ‘وَإِذَا طَلَّقْتُمْ النِّسَاءَ فَبَلَغْنَ أَجَلَهُنَّ فَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ’ is a single sentence composed of a prodosis (شرط) and an apodosis (جزا). The prodosis is ‘وَإِذَا طَلَّقْتُمْ النِّسَاءَ فَبَلَغْنَ أَجَلَهُنَّ’ and the apodosis is ‘فَلَا تَعْضُلُوهُنَّ’. There can be no doubt in the fact that the prodosis is addressed to the husbands. Consequently, it is imperative that the apodosis also be addressed to the husbands. If this were not so, the verse would imply ‘‘When you O husbands, divorce your wives, you O guardians should not stop them….’. This of course would create a disagreement between the prodosis and the apodosis and this would also dismember the coherence of the discourse, and it is essential to disregard such a thing from the message of God’’.9 III Exegesis and Explanation (الشرح و التفسير)
1. ‘أَمَرَكُمْ
اللَّهُ’
(The directive of God)
The part of verse 229 ‘…وَلَا
يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَنْ تَأْخُذُوا مِمَّا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ شَيْئًا’
till the end of the verse is often interpreted to mean the right of a wife
to seek divorce from her husband (خُلع).11
Many commentators argue that these verses suggest that a woman must pay some
money to her husband in order to liberate herself from him. However, if the
context of the verse is taken into consideration, this cannot be the meaning
of the verse, as pointed out by
Ghamidi
(note: 23). The husband is first told that if he finally decides to divorce
his wife, then he must be decent enough not to take back any gifts he may
have given his wife. Then, in the aforementioned verse, he is told that in
one exceptional case it is lawful for him to take back some gifts: when both
parties desire legal separation, but the husband desists from divorce
because he believes his financial loss, through wealth, assets or property,
would be too significant. In such a case, it would be acceptable for the
wife to return the gifts to her husband and for the husband to accept them.
In Arabic ‘إِنْ’ is not used for routine and usual matters. Usually, it is used for rare and contingent occurrences. For regular matters, ‘اِذَاِ’ is used.12
Moreover, there is no linguistic basis of construing that in
this verse the verb
‘تَنكِحَ’
implies sexual intercourse.13
IV Scriptures and Testaments (العهود و الصحف)
1.
Menstruation Directives When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.
Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed she was sitting on or anything else she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening.
If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches her, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean. (Leviticus, 15:19-24) 2.
Wrongful Oaths You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your Lord, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. (Exodus, 20:7) 3.
Divorce If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives to her and sends her from his house, and after she leaves his house, she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then the first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she had been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deuteronomy, 24:1-4)
Some of the contrasting points regarding divorce between the
OT and the Qur’an are:
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1. In A%‘sha’s following couplets, for example, the word is used in this latter meaning:
ا فى كل عام انت جاشم غزوة تشد لاقصاها عزيم عزائك
مؤصلة مالا و فى الحي رفعة لما ضاع فيها من قروء نسائكا
(Will you set out every year to bear the hardship of a war traveling to its peak areas with strong determination; such that you gain wealth and earn fame in return for the missed periods of purity of your wives.)
2. Zamakhshari, Kashshaff, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Ahya al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1997), 300.
3. See Islahi, Amin Ahsan, Tadabbur-i-Qur’an, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Lahore: Faran Foundation, 1986), 539.
4. Islahi has translated it thus: ‘which He revealed for your instruction’, (Tadabbur-i-Qur’an, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Lahore: Faran Foundation, 1986), 525.
5. Zamakhshari,
Kashshaff, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Ahya al-Turath
al-‘Arabi, 1997), 296.
6. Abu Hayyan,
al-Bahr al-Muhit, 1st ed., vol. 2 (Makkah: Dar al-Fikr,
1992), 460.
7. Zamakhshari, Kashshaff, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Ahya al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1997), 305.
8. For more examples of such usage in the Qur’an, see 12:36 and 71:27. In the former, the word ‘خَمْر’ and in latter ‘فَاجِر’ is used similarly.
9. Razi, Imam Fakhr al-Din, Tafsir Kabir, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (Tehran: Dar al-Kutub al- ‘Ilmiyyah, n.d.), 112.
10. For a use of the word in the first sense, see 80:23
11. This of course does not mean that she does not have the right to seek divorce. What is being implied is that these verses do not state this right.
12. Islahi, Amin Ahsan, Tadabbur-i-Qur’an, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Lahore: Faran Foundation, 1986), 638.
13. Ibid., 537-539.
14.
The New Testament limits this ‘indecency’ to
‘marital unfaithfulness’. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus (sws) says:
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery. (Matthew, 19:9)