Surah At-Tahrim

This is a very important Surah in which light has been thrown on some questions of grave significance with reference to some incidents concerning the wives of the Prophet ﷺ.

First, that the powers to prescribe the bounds of the lawful and the unlawful, the permissible and the forbidden, are entirely and absolutely in the hand of Allah and nothing has been delegated even to the Prophet ﷺof Allah himself. The Prophet ﷺas such can declare something lawful or unlawful only if he receives an inspiration from Allah to do so, whether that inspiration is embodied in the Qur’an, or imparted to him secretly. However, even the Prophet ﷺis not authorized to declare anything made permissible by Allah unlawful by himself, much less to say of another man.

Second, that in any society the position of a Prophet ﷺis very delicate. A minor incident experienced by an ordinary man in his life may not be of any consequence, but it assumes the status of law when experienced by a Prophet ﷺ. That is why the lives of the Prophets ﷺhave been kept under close supervision by Allah so that none of their acts, not even a most trivial one, may deviate from Divine Will. Whenever such an act has emanated from a Prophet ﷺ, it was rectified and rectified immediately so that the Islamic law and its principles should reach the people in their absolute purity not only through the Divine Book but also through the excellent example of the Prophet ﷺ, and they should include nothing which may be in disagreement with Divine Will.

Thirdly, this automatically follows from the above mentioned point, that when the Prophet ﷺwas tested, which was not only corrected but also recorded, it gives us complete satisfaction that whatever actions, commands and instructions we now find in the pure life of the Prophet ﷺ, concerning which there is nothing on record in the nature of criticism or correction from Allah, they are wholly based on truth, are in complete conformity with Divine Will and we can draw guidance from them with full confidence and peace of mind.

The fourth thing that we learn from this discourse is that about the Messenger himself, whose reverence and respect Allah Himself has enjoined as a necessary part of the Faith of His servants, it has been stated in this Surah that once during his sacred life he made a thing declared lawful by Allah unlawful for himself only to please his wives; then Allah has severely reproved for their errors those very wives of the Prophet ﷺ, whom He Himself has declared as mothers of the faithful and worthy of the highest esteem and honour by them. Then, this criticism of the Prophet ﷺand the administration of the warning to the wives also has not been made secretly but included in the Book, which the entire ‘nation of Muslims’ (Ummah) has to read and recite forever. Obviously, neither the intention of making mention of it in the Book of Allah was, nor it could be, that Allah wanted to degrade His Messenger and the mothers of the faithful in the eyes of the believers; and this also is obvious that no Muslim has lost respect for them, in his heart after reading this Surah of the Qur’an. Now, there cannot be any other reason of mentioning this thing in the Qur’an than that Allah wants to acquaint the Believers with the correct manner of reverence for their great personalities.

The Prophet ﷺis a Prophet, not God, that he may commit no error. Respect of the Prophet ﷺhas not been enjoined because he is infallible, but because he is a perfect representative of Divine Will, and God has not permitted any of his errors to pass by unnoticed. This gives us the satisfaction that the noble pattern of life left by the Prophet ﷺwholly and fully represents the will of God. Likewise, the Companions of the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, were human, not angels or supermen.

They could commit mistakes. Whatever ranks they achieved became possible only because the guidance given by Allah and the training imparted by Allah’s Messenger had moulded them into the finest models. Whatever esteem and reverence they deserve is on this very basis and not on the presumption that they were infallible. For this reason, whenever in the sacred lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ, the Companions or wives happened to commit an error due to human weakness, they were checked. Some of their errors were corrected by the Prophet ﷺ, as has been mentioned in many places in the hadith; some other errors were mentioned in the Qur’an and Allah Himself corrected them so that the Muslims might not form any exaggerated notion of the respect and reverence of their elders and great men, which might raise them from humanity to the position of god’s and goddesses. If one studies the Qur’an carefully, one will see instances of this one after the other. The fifth thing that has been explicitly mentioned in this Surah is that Allah’s Religion is absolutely fair and just. It has for every person just that of which he becomes worthy on the basis of his faith and works. No relationship or connection even with the most righteous person can be beneficial for him in any way and no relationship or connection with the most evil and wicked person can be harmful for him in any way. In this connection three kinds of women have been cited as examples before the wives in particular. One example is of the wives of the Prophets Nuh and Lut, who, if they had believed and cooperated with their illustrious husbands, would have occupied the same rank and position in the Muslim community which is enjoyed by the wives of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. But since they were disbelievers, being the wives of the Prophets ﷺdid not help them and they fell into Hell. The second example is of the wife of Pharaoh, who in spite of being the wife of a staunch enemy of Allah, believed and chose a path of action separate from that followed by the Pharaoh’s people, and her being the wife of a staunch disbeliever did not cause her any harm, and Allah made her worthy of Paradise. The third example is of Mary (Maryam) who attained to the high rank because she submitted to the severe test to which Allah had decided to put her. Apart from Mary no other chaste and righteous woman in the world ever has been put to such a hard test that in spite of being unmarried, she might have been made pregnant miraculously by Allah’s command and informed what service her Lord willed to take from her. When Mary accepted this decision, and agreed to bear it like a true believer, everything that she inevitably had to bear in order to fulfil Allah’s will, then did Allah exalt her to the noble rank of ‘Leader of the women in Paradise’ Another lesson we learn from this Surah is that the Prophet ﷺdid not just receive from Allah knowledge which was included and recorded in the Qur’an, but he was given information about other things also by revelation, which has not been recorded in the Qur’an. The clear proof is verse 3 of this Surah. In it we are told that the Prophet ﷺconfided a secret to one of his wives, and she told it to another. Allah informed the Prophet ﷺof this secret. Then, when the Prophet ﷺwarned his particular wife on the mistake of disclosure and she said, “Who told you this?” He replied: “I was informed by the Knowing, the Acquainted.”81 81 Tafheem al-Qur’an, Mawdudi.