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04

Sūrah page

Sūrat al-Nisāʾ

Introduction

Part A: The Sūrah

1. Where and When It Came Down

Sūrat al-Nisāʾ belongs to the Madinan period, after the Prophet’s ﷺ migration from Makkah to Madīnah. “Madinan” here tells us when it was revealed. A verse revealed outside Madīnah after the Hijrah can still belong to that period.

This distinction explains al-Qurṭubī’s qualification concerning verse 4:58. He says it came down in Makkah during the conquest, in connection with ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥah رضي الله عنه, the keeper of the key of the Kaʿbah. Its place of revelation was Makkah; its time of revelation was well after the Hijrah.

Three other views have been reported:

  1. Al-Naqqāsh reports that the sūrah came down when the Prophet ﷺ migrated from Makkah to Madīnah.
  2. Al-Naḥḥās held that the sūrah is Makkan.
  3. ʿAlqamah and others held that passages beginning with يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ (yā ayyuhā al-nās), “O mankind,” are Makkan. Applied here, this would make the opening of the sūrah Makkan and the rest Madinan.

The Madinan classification rests on stronger evidence. ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها said that Sūrat al-Nisāʾ was revealed while she was living with the Prophet ﷺ, and their married life together began in Madīnah. The sūrah’s detailed laws also address the needs of an established Muslim community. These are al-Qurṭubī’s two main reasons for accepting the Madinan position and setting aside the alternatives. As for “O mankind,” the same address occurs in al-Baqarah, an acknowledged Madinan sūrah. The form of address cannot, by itself, establish a Makkan date.

Ibn ʿĀshūr reaches the same conclusion and explains why the address does not settle the place either. “O mankind” includes the people of Makkah among those being addressed; it does not tell us that the words were spoken in Makkah or before the Hijrah. He calls the proposed date at the Hijrah “far-fetched” and the Makkan claim even stranger. He also notes that “Makkan” is sometimes used geographically, for a passage revealed in Makkah even after the Hijrah. A statement about place must therefore be read in the sense its author intends.

Over What Period Was It Revealed?

A Madinan sūrah need not have come down all at once. The question is how its revelation unfolded within that period. The sources give these dates; AH counts the years from the Hijrah:

Source Period described
Ibn ʿĀshūr Around 7 AH, while adding that its revelation continued over a long period
Mawdūdī From the latter part of 3 AH through 4 AH, and perhaps into early 5 AH; he connects verses 1–28 with the aftermath of Uḥud
Sayyid Quṭb From after the Battle of Uḥud in 3 AH until approximately 8 AH
Al-Zuḥaylī Gives no precise date, but uses ʿĀʾishah’s رضي الله عنها statement to establish that it came down after she began living with the Prophet ﷺ in Madīnah

The earliest and latest dates are several years apart. To understand them, we need to distinguish the revelation of an opening passage from the completion of a long sūrah. New portions could come down as new circumstances arose.

Ibn ʿĀshūr begins with the evidence for the order of revelation. The scholars agreed that al-Nisāʾ followed al-Baqarah, and the majority placed it after Āl ʿImrān. The sequence reported from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما is al-Baqarah, al-Anfāl, Āl ʿImrān, al-Aḥzāb, al-Mumtaḥanah, and then al-Nisāʾ. That sequence places it after the Battle of the Confederates and the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah. He then considers the verse of tayammum. He dates its legislation to the expedition of al-Muraysīʿ in 5 or 6 AH. From these indications, he places the sūrah’s revelation around 7 AH while explicitly allowing a long period for it.

Ibn ʿĀshūr also uses the account linking 4:58 to the conquest of Makkah to explain how revelation of the sūrah could have continued over several years. In Ibn ʿĀshūr’s explanation, it supports the length of the revelation period; it is not the evidence from which he derives the date of 7 AH. Quṭb likewise describes a long process in which separate portions were revealed and the Prophet ﷺ placed them in their appointed order.

Ibn ʿĀshūr also records a view about the final verse on kalālah, a person who dies without a direct parent or child as heir: it has been described as the last verse of the Qurʾān to be revealed. He does not present this as a settled conclusion. Al-Wāḥidī says that the earlier kalālah verse was revealed in winter and the final one in summer. The Prophet ﷺ called the final verse “the summer verse,” as ʿUmar’s report in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim records.

These scholars describe a sūrah revealed over several years, but differ over its dates. Mawdūdī connects its opening with the aftermath of Uḥud; Ibn ʿĀshūr argues for a later date while allowing an extended period of revelation; Quṭb describes a span from after Uḥud to approximately the conquest of Makkah. Their accounts help explain the setting of its guidance: a Muslim community facing new questions about family life, property, justice and public order. The precise beginning and end remain disputed. And Allah knows best.

2. Its Place in the Order of Revelation

In the order recorded by Ibn ʿĀshūr, Sūrat al-Nisāʾ is the ninety-third sūrah to be revealed, after al-Mumtaḥanah and before al-Zalzalah.

The sequence reported from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما also places al-Nisāʾ after al-Mumtaḥanah. Quṭb agrees that it followed shortly after Sūrah 60, al-Mumtaḥanah, although he does not assign it the number ninety-three.

The order of revelation and the order in which we read the Qurʾān answer different questions. The first concerns when the sūrahs came down. In the written order of the Qurʾān, al-Nisāʾ is the fourth sūrah.

3. How Many Verses?

The same Qurʾānic text is counted as 175, 176 or 177 verses in the recognized counting traditions. The difference lies in where a verse is counted as ending. No words are added or removed.

Verse count Counting tradition
175 Madīnah, Makkah, and Baṣrah
176 Kūfah
177 Syria

The muṣḥaf used in this tafsir follows the Kūfan count of 176 verses. Al-Zuḥaylī also gives 176 without listing the other recognized counts. Ibn ʿĀshūr preserves all three and identifies the counting traditions to which they belong.

By length, al-Nisāʾ is second only to Sūrat al-Baqarah.

4. Its Name, and Why

Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, “The Sūrah of Women,” is its established name. It was known by this name among the early Muslims, and the same name appears in the muṣḥafs, books of Sunnah, and works of tafsīr. Ibn ʿĀshūr says that no other established name is known for it.

The name points to a central concern of the sūrah. Its opening joins all people through one origin and the bonds of kinship. Then come the rights that make those bonds a responsibility: the orphan’s property, a woman’s dowry, the obligations of marriage, and the shares of inheritance. Women appear throughout these teachings as people to whom rights are owed. The sūrah closes, too, with an inheritance ruling. Its concern for women belongs to the larger demand for justice within the family and the community.

The secondary titles mentioned in the sources do not establish another recognized name for this sūrah.

5. Its Merit

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه said:

إِنَّ فِي سُورَةِ النِّسَاءِ لَخَمْسَ آيَاتٍ مَا يَسُرُّنِي أَنَّ لِيَ بِهَا الدُّنْيَا وَمَا فِيهَا
“In Sūrat al-Nisāʾ are five verses that I would not exchange for the world and everything in it.”

Al-Dhahabī grades this athar, a statement of a Companion, ṣaḥīḥ, sound. The complete five-verse form is preserved by al-Ṭabarānī and other collectors.

The five verses are:

1. Allah’s promise to those who avoid the major sins:

﴿إِن تَجۡتَنِبُواْ كَبَآئِرَ مَا تُنۡهَوۡنَ عَنۡهُ نُكَفِّرۡ عَنكُمۡ سَيِّـَٔاتِكُمۡ وَنُدۡخِلۡكُم مُّدۡخَلٗا كَرِيمٗا﴾
“If you avoid the major sins that you are forbidden, We will erase your lesser sins and admit you through an honorable entrance” (4:31)

2. Allah’s perfect justice and multiplication of good:

﴿إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظۡلِمُ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٖۖ وَإِن تَكُ حَسَنَةٗ يُضَٰعِفۡهَا وَيُؤۡتِ مِن لَّدُنۡهُ أَجۡرًا عَظِيمٗا﴾
“Allah does not wrong even the weight of an atom. If there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives from Himself a great reward” (4:40)

3. The vastness of Allah’s forgiveness:

﴿إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَغۡفِرُ أَن يُشۡرَكَ بِهِۦ وَيَغۡفِرُ مَا دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ لِمَن يَشَآءُۚ﴾
“Allah does not forgive associating partners with Him, but He forgives anything less than that for whomever He wills” (4:48)

4. The acceptance of those who return to Allah after wronging themselves:

﴿وَلَوۡ أَنَّهُمۡ إِذ ظَّلَمُوٓاْ أَنفُسَهُمۡ جَآءُوكَ فَٱسۡتَغۡفَرُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَٱسۡتَغۡفَرَ لَهُمُ ٱلرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُواْ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابٗا رَّحِيمٗا﴾
“If, after wronging themselves, they had come to you and sought Allah’s forgiveness, and the Messenger had sought forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah accepting of repentance and merciful” (4:64)

5. The open door of repentance:

﴿وَمَن يَعۡمَلۡ سُوٓءًا أَوۡ يَظۡلِمۡ نَفۡسَهُۥ ثُمَّ يَسۡتَغۡفِرِ ٱللَّهَ يَجِدِ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٗا رَّحِيمٗا﴾
“Whoever commits evil or wrongs himself, then seeks Allah’s forgiveness, will find Allah forgiving and merciful” (4:110)

Ibn Masʿūd’s words place these promises beside everything a person might possess in this world. The verses give hope at the very points where a person needs it: in the good he has done, the sins he has committed, and the possibility of returning to Allah in sincere repentance.

Al-Zuḥaylī identifies three connections between Sūrat al-Nisāʾ and Sūrat Āl ʿImrān:

  1. The command to be mindful of Allah. It closes Āl ʿImrān as an address to believers and opens al-Nisāʾ as an address to all people.
  2. The Battle of Uḥud. A major part of Āl ʿImrān discusses the battle; al-Nisāʾ 4:88 addresses a situation that arose from it.
  3. The expedition of Ḥamrāʾ al-Asad. Āl ʿImrān 3:172–175 concerns this expedition, while al-Nisāʾ 4:104 addresses the believers as they continued to face the enemy after suffering wounds.

The connection is both verbal and historical. Āl ʿImrān ends by calling believers to steadfastness and mindfulness of Allah. Al-Nisāʾ unfolds the responsibilities of that mindfulness in family life, property, justice, leadership and relations with other communities.

7. What the Sūrah Is About

An orphan’s inheritance, a marriage, a court judgment and a community at war may seem to belong to separate subjects. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ brings them under a shared responsibility: those who worship one Lord must protect rights, restrain the misuse of power, and establish justice.

The movement begins close to home. Ibn ʿĀshūr identifies dealings between relatives and their mutual rights as the largest part of the sūrah. Its opening recalls humanity’s creation from one soul, preparing the reader for duties toward family members and other people. From that common origin follow the rights of orphans, women, spouses, heirs and the weak.

Al-Zuḥaylī describes two connected families: the smaller family of the home and the larger family of Muslim society. The concerns widen from the household to social cooperation, public authority, trusts, justice, and the conduct of war and peace. They include relations with the People of the Book, the danger of hypocrisy, and the defense of tawḥīd against the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Quṭb likewise observes that the discussion of the People of the Book returns to Allah’s oneness and humanity’s servitude to Him.

Building a Community Under Revelation

Mawdūdī identifies three tasks facing the growing Muslim community in Madīnah. It needed to order its common life, protect itself from hostile forces and internal hypocrisy, and continue conveying the message of Islam. These tasks had to be undertaken together.

A household needed clear rules for marriage, prohibited relationships, dowry, inheritance and the care of orphans. Family disagreements and questions about property required a just way of being settled. Beyond the home were further responsibilities: returning trusts, exercising public authority, judging crime, dealing with deliberate and accidental killing, and responding to military danger. Al-Baqarah had already laid many foundations; al-Nisāʾ develops these areas of community life in greater detail.

The range of subjects reflects the life of an established community. Its members needed guidance both as individuals and as people responsible for others. The same revelation that directed worship had to guide the use of property, leadership and force.

One Lord and One Human Family

Before the sūrah tells a guardian how to handle an orphan’s wealth, it tells him who his Lord is and where the orphan comes from. Both were created by Allah; both belong to the human family that began from one soul. The guardian’s power over another person’s property is therefore governed by a responsibility to their Creator. Quṭb connects the sūrah’s family laws, its ordering of the Muslim community, and its view of humanity through these two truths: one Lord and one human origin.

This is why the command to be mindful of Allah comes before the detailed laws. The rights of other people are obligations He has laid upon us. He sees how we fulfill them, including what no court or relative can see.

A guardian must protect the orphan’s property. A husband must fulfill his wife’s rights. An heir must accept the share Allah assigned, and a judge must be fair even when the truth is against himself or those closest to him. Each will answer to Allah. Family leadership, public office and ownership are trusts. Each brings a different kind of power, and none gives a person permission to use the weak for his own benefit.

Reforming the Home and Society

The family laws answered injustices that custom had allowed to continue. Guardians consumed the property of orphans. Some exchanged an orphan’s valuable property for their own inferior property. Orphan girls could be kept under a guardian’s control so that he might marry them for their wealth. Inheritance was sometimes limited to those strong enough to fight. A widow could be treated as part of the estate left by her husband.

Against these inherited customs, the Qurʾān placed the rights of the weak under divine protection. It gave women defined shares of inheritance, recognized their independent ownership of property, commanded the payment of dowry, protected orphans from dishonest guardians, and prohibited treating women as inherited possessions.

Quṭb describes the abuses as conditions in the “ignorant society at the time” and quotes the legal maxim “general application supersede special circumstances.” A ruling that protects an orphan’s property continues to govern later cases covered by its wording. The particular abuse helps us understand why the guidance was needed; it does not confine that guidance to the people first addressed.

The same protection applies within marriage. Al-Zuḥaylī explains that a woman has full legal capacity and property of her own, independent of a man’s property even when he is her husband. Her marriage does not absorb her financial estate into his. Al-Zuḥaylī also describes the husband’s qiwāmah as a responsibility for the affairs of the household. It gives him no despotic authority. It is a burden and an obligation for which he must answer.

Throughout these laws, the sūrah returns to faith, worship, mindfulness of Allah, and His judgment. Quṭb draws attention to the closing comments of the relevant verses: they renew the concept on which the legislation rests. A command about another person’s rights is accompanied by a reminder of Allah’s knowledge, mercy, power or watchfulness. The rule tells a person what is owed; the reminder forms the conscience that must honor it when no human authority is watching.

Justice Beyond Family and Tribe

The sūrah carries the same standard from the household into public life. Trusts must be returned and judgments made fairly. The wronged must be defended, people must support one another in doing good, and personal desire must not bend the truth. These duties reach into property and bloodshed, deliberate and accidental killing, security, warfare, hypocrisy, and relations with other religious communities. The sūrah also prepares the community for the prohibition of intoxicants.

Verses 4:105–116 show what this justice requires when loyalty to one’s own group pulls in another direction. A mursal report from Qatādah, which does not name a Companion narrator, describes a man who blamed a Jewish man for a theft. Members of his clan defended him, but revelation cleared the innocent man and reproached those defending the guilty party. His being Jewish did not weaken his claim to justice; their being Muslim did not make their accusation true. Quṭb describes the passage as “a clear ascendance towards the sublime.”

The connection with the family laws is close. An orphan’s guardian cannot make the child’s property his own. A husband cannot make his position an excuse to deny his wife’s rights. Nor can a community make its shared religion an excuse to condemn an innocent person. In each case, someone has an advantage that can be used against another. The sūrah places that advantage under Allah’s judgment.

Sūrat al-Nisāʾ begins with one Lord, one human origin, and the bond of the family. Its guidance reaches from the home into the courts, the community, war and peace, and relations with those outside the Muslim community. Its laws protect the weak, discipline the powerful, and join social order to faith in Allah. And Allah knows best.

Notes

  1. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, Dār Hajr printing, 7/170–172, ed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, records the return of the key through al-Qāsim, al-Ḥusayn and Ḥajjāj, from Ibn Jurayj. Al-Wāḥidī records a report from Mujāhid through Ibn Jurayj in Asbāb Nuzūl al-Qurʾān, Dār al-Iṣlāḥ, second printing, p. 158, ed. ʿIṣām ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Ḥumaydān. Al-Ḥumaydān calls this second report mursal and its chain weak because Ibn Jurayj, a mudallis, does not expressly state that he heard it. Al-Ṭabarī considers revelation on this occasion possible while interpreting the command as applying to everyone entrusted with a responsibility. Al-Qurṭubī uses the conquest account when discussing the sūrah’s classification in al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/1.  ↩

  2. Al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb Nuzūl al-Qurʾān, Dār al-Iṣlāḥ, second printing, p. 22, ed. ʿIṣām ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Ḥumaydān, records ʿAlqamah’s statement through Rawḥ, Shuʿbah, Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Aʿmash and Ibrāhīm: passages beginning “O mankind” are Makkan, and those beginning “O you who believe” are Madinan. Al-Qurṭubī reports this view alongside those of al-Naqqāsh and al-Naḥḥās, then answers it by pointing to the address “O mankind” in the Madinan Sūrat al-Baqarah: al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/1.  ↩

  3. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 6/185, no. 4993, Book of the Virtues of the Qurʾān, chapter on the arrangement of the Qurʾān, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها. Al-Qurṭubī develops the argument for a Madinan date in al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/1.  ↩

  4. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/212. ↩

  5. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/212. ↩

  6. Mawdūdī, Towards Understanding the Qurʾān, trans. Zafar Ishaq Ansari, introduction to Sūrah 4, “Period of Revelation.” ↩

  7. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, p. 1. ↩

  8. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 6/185, no. 4993, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها; al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/219.  ↩

  9. Ibn al-Ḍurays, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān wa-mā Unzila min al-Qurʾān bi-Makkah wa-mā Nuzila bi-l-Madīnah, Dār al-Fikr, first printing, pp. 33–35, no. 17, ed. Ghazwah Budayr, records the sequence from Ibn ʿAbbās through ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī. Al-Suyūṭī quotes the chain and list in al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 1/42–43, ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Dākhil al-Muṭayrī regards the chain as interrupted between ʿAṭāʾ and Ibn ʿAbbās and calls ʿUmar ibn Hārūn, a transmitter in no. 17, abandoned. He also faults the alternative route through Ibn Jurayj because Ibn Jurayj, known for tadlīs, transmits from ʿAṭāʾ without expressly stating that he heard him. He finds discrepancies with established revelation accounts as well: Tartīb Nuzūl Suwar al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, “Muqaddimāt fī Tartīb al-Nuzūl.” Ibn ʿĀshūr cites the sequence in al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/211.  ↩

  10. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 1/74, no. 334, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها, on the loss of her necklace and the revelation of the verse of tayammum. Ibn ʿĀshūr dates its legislation to the expedition of al-Muraysīʿ in 5 or 6 AH and develops his chronological argument in al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/212.  ↩

  11. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, Dār Hajr printing, 7/170–172, ed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, from Ibn Jurayj; al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb Nuzūl al-Qurʾān, Dār al-Iṣlāḥ, second printing, p. 158, ed. ʿIṣām ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Ḥumaydān, from Mujāhid. Ibn ʿĀshūr uses the conquest account to explain the extended revelation period in al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/212.  ↩

  12. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, p. 1. ↩

  13. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 6/64, no. 4654, from al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib رضي الله عنه, who identifies 4:176 as the last verse revealed. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3/1236, no. 1617 (9), ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb رضي الله عنه: the Prophet ﷺ directed him to “the summer verse” at the end of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. Al-Wāḥidī attributes to the scholars the statement that the earlier verse came down in winter and the final verse in summer: al-Tafsīr al-Basīṭ, 7/211. Al-Suyūṭī quotes him in al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 1/86, ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm. Ibn ʿĀshūr discusses these designations in al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/212.  ↩

  14. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/213. ↩

  15. Ibn al-Ḍurays, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, Dār al-Fikr, first printing, pp. 33–35, no. 17, ed. Ghazwah Budayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās through ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/211.  ↩

  16. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, p. 1. ↩

  17. Al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/219. ↩

  18. Al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/219. ↩

  19. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/213. ↩

  20. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, p. 1. ↩

  21. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/211. ↩

  22. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/211. ↩

  23. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 6/30, no. 4532, from Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه, who calls Sūrat al-Ṭalāq سُورَةُ النِّسَاءِ الْقُصْرَى, “the shorter Sūrah of Women.” Ibn ʿĀshūr suggests that Sūrat al-Nisāʾ may consequently have been called سُورَةُ النِّسَاءِ الطُّولَى, “the longer Sūrah of Women,” but says that he found no explicit use of that title. He also reports al-Fīrūzābādī’s titles al-Kubrā and al-Ṣughrā, “the greater” and “the smaller,” a pairing he found nowhere else. These are two different pairs: al-Ṭūlā/al-Quṣrā and al-Kubrā/al-Ṣughrā. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/211; al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/220.  ↩

  24. Al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, Muʾassasat al-Risālah printing, 4/196–197, no. 3233, ed. the Islamic Heritage Editing Office, from Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه, mawqūf. Al-Ḥākim says: هَذَا إِسْنَادٌ صَحِيحٌ إِنْ كَانَ عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ سَمِعَ مِنْ أَبِيهِ، فَقَدِ اخْتُلِفَ فِي ذَلِكَ, “This chain is sound if ʿAbd al-Raḥmān heard from his father, for there is disagreement about that.” His chain is Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb, from Abū al-Bakhtarī ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Shākir, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-ʿAbdī, from Misʿar ibn Kidām, from Maʿn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, from Ibn Masʿūd. Al-Zuḥaylī’s abbreviated citation omits Maʿn; all three cited editions of al-Mustadrak include him.

    Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr preserves all five verses in his Sunan, Dār al-Ṣumayʿī printing, 4/1297, no. 659, ed. Saʿd ibn ʿAbd Allāh Āl Ḥumayyid, through Sufyān, from Misʿar, from Maʿn, from his father, from Ibn Masʿūd. Through Saʿīd, al-Ṭabarānī also records this form in al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah printing, 9/220, no. 9069, ed. Ḥamdī ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī; al-Bayhaqī records it in Shuʿab al-Īmān, Maktabat al-Rushd printing, 4/76, no. 2203, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Ḥāmid.

    Al-Dhahabī grades the athar صَحِيح, “sound,” in his Talkhīṣ accompanying al-Mustadrak, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah printing, 2/334, no. 3194. Al-Haythamī says of al-Ṭabarānī’s chain: رِجَالُهُ رِجَالُ الصَّحِيحِ, “Its narrators are narrators of the Ṣaḥīḥ collections” (Majmaʿ al-Zawāʾid, Maktabat al-Qudsī printing, 7/11–12). The Islamic Heritage Editing Office, al-Mustadrak, 4/196–197, judges the chain sound and prefers the view that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān heard a small amount from his father.

    Saʿd Āl Ḥumayyid disagrees about this particular transmission. He judges its chain weak through interruption, holding that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān heard only two reports from his father and that this was not one of them. He nevertheless grades the athar ḥasan li-ghayrihi, strengthened by supporting transmission. He adduces a four-verse report in Hannād’s al-Zuhd, Dār al-Khulafāʾ li-l-Kitāb al-Islāmī printing, 2/454–455, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Faryawāʾī, through ʿAṭāʾ al-Bazzāz and Bashīr al-Awdī. He judges that chain weak too, because Bashīr is unknown and ʿAṭāʾ’s reliability is unestablished, but considers it supporting evidence. He understands Ibn Maʿīn’s “He is nothing” concerning ʿAṭāʾ as referring here to the small number of his narrations, not as disparagement. Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Sunan, Dār al-Ṣumayʿī printing, 4/1297–1299, no. 659, ed. Saʿd Āl Ḥumayyid.

    The Muʾassasat al-Risālah and al-Minhāj al-Qawīm editions of al-Mustadrak give four verses: 4:40, 4:31, 4:48 and 4:64; the Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah edition also includes 4:110. The Islamic Heritage Editing Office states that 4:110 is absent from its manuscripts of this athar. It cites al-Bayhaqī’s narration through al-Ḥākim, Shuʿab al-Īmān, Maktabat al-Rushd printing, 4/75–76, no. 2202: after the four verses, al-Bayhaqī says, “I think the fifth is” 4:110. Saʿīd’s transmission includes 4:110 without that qualification.  ↩

  25. Al-Dhahabī, Talkhīṣ al-Mustadrak, with al-Mustadrak, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah printing, 2/334, no. 3194. For the complete five-verse form: al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah printing, 9/220, no. 9069, ed. Ḥamdī ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī.  ↩

  26. Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Sunan, Dār al-Ṣumayʿī printing, 4/1297, no. 659, ed. Saʿd ibn ʿAbd Allāh Āl Ḥumayyid; al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah printing, 9/220, no. 9069, ed. Ḥamdī ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī; al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-Īmān, Maktabat al-Rushd printing, 4/76, no. 2203, ed. ʿAbd al-ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Ḥāmid.  ↩

  27. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 3/22–23, no. 1884, from Zayd ibn Thābit رضي الله عنه: 4:88 followed the dispute over those who turned back when the Prophet ﷺ went out to Uḥud. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, 5/102, no. 4077, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها, on 3:172 and the pursuit of the enemy after Uḥud. Al-Zuḥaylī connects these passages and 4:104 in al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/220–221.  ↩

  28. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/213. ↩

  29. Al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/220–221. ↩

  30. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 10–11. ↩

  31. Mawdūdī, Towards Understanding the Qurʾān, trans. Zafar Ishaq Ansari, introduction to Sūrah 4, “Background and Subject Matter.” ↩

  32. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 7–9. His map connects the subjects to these verses:

    • Care for orphans: 4:2, 4:6, 4:9, and 4:10.
    • Orphan girls and widows: 4:3, 4:4, 4:7, 4:19–21, and 4:127.
    • Family organization: 4:22–24, 4:34–35, and 4:128–130.
    • Inheritance and the removal of adopted lineage from inheritance: 4:7, 4:11–12, 4:33, and 4:176.
    • Chastity: 4:15–16 and 4:25–26.
    • Wider community conduct: 4:5, 4:8, 4:29–30, 4:32, 4:36–38, 4:59, 4:85–86, 4:92–93, 4:135, and 4:148–149.

    ↩

  33. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 5–6. ↩

  34. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 5–6. ↩

  35. Al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/220–221. ↩

  36. Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 8–9. ↩

  37. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, Dār Hajr printing, 7/462–463, ed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, from Bishr ibn Muʿādh, from Yazīd, from Saʿīd, from Qatādah. Qatādah recounts that Ṭuʿmah ibn Ubayriq blamed a Jewish man, Zayd ibn al-Samīn, for the stolen armour. ʿIṣām al-Ḥumaydān describes Qatādah’s account as mursal, with a sound chain to him, in his edition of al-Wāḥidī’s Asbāb Nuzūl al-Qurʾān, Dār al-Iṣlāḥ, second printing, p. 181. Sayyid Quṭb develops its lesson of justice in Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, English trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, Prologue, pp. 12–13.  ↩

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