2/240-242 — Bequest, matāʿ and the closing of the section
"Those of you who die and leave wives behind should make a bequest for their wives: provision for a year without their being turned out of the house. But if they leave of themselves, there is no responsibility upon you for what they do about themselves in a fitting way. God is mighty, wise. And for divorced women there is a provision in a fitting way; a duty upon those who guard themselves. Thus does God make His verses clear to you, that you may use your reason."
These three verses stand immediately after the prayer verses at 238-239 and immediately before the story at 243. The section on family law, that is, has been interrupted once by the prayer verses and continues from where it was cut.
And the subject it continues with is the subject at the head of the section: at verses 234-235 the waiting period of a woman whose husband has died was regulated; here the financial and residential side of the same situation is regulated.
مَتَاع — root م-ت-ع: what is enjoyed, provision. The word was treated at verse 236; there a return was asked for even where no obligation had arisen in law.
ٱلْحَوْل — root ح-و-ل: to turn, to pass from state to state. From the same root come taḥawwul (transformation), ḥāl and iḥāla. Arabic has given the year this name because a year is the span that comes round to its beginning. The word itself draws a circle.
What is given is not merely a maintenance; it is at the same time the right to stay in the house. And the expression is built in the negative: a right is not granted, an act is forbidden — turning out.
I record this as my own reading: the regulation targets the most concrete risk at the moment when the woman is most fragile. The first threat a woman whose husband has died faces is the heirs' turning her out of the house. Before money, the verse secures shelter.
And immediately afterwards a clause comes: فَإِنْ خَرَجْنَ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْكُمْ — "if they leave of themselves, there is no responsibility upon you." The right, that is, is in the woman's favour and she is not obliged to use it. The right to stay is not turned into an obligation to stay.
فِى مَا فَعَلْنَ فِىٓ أَنفُسِهِنَّ مِن مَّعْرُوفٍ — "in what they do about themselves in a fitting way." The decision is left to the woman, and the only clause is maʿrūf. The same word had done the same work at verse 235.
The relation of this verse to verse 234, which states the waiting period of four months and ten days, is a classical dispute and must not be concealed:
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| It has been abrogated | The period of a year was the earlier practice; verse 234 brought it down to four months and ten days. The view widely transmitted in the classical commentaries |
| Their subjects differ | 234 regulates the waiting period (ʿidda), 240 the right of residence and maintenance; the two are separate institutions and do not conflict |
| It is bound up with the verses of inheritance | When the rulings on inheritance came, the provision secured by bequest gave way to a fixed share |
I impose no preference and issue no legal ruling. I confine myself to recalling the method I adopted at verse 106: if two verses can be reconciled, reconciling them is preferred to claiming abrogation. By this measure the second view contains less claim; but the wide currency of the first view in the classical commentaries must be recorded too.
A detail of arrangement can also be noted: verse 240 stands after 234. That a ruling said to have been abrogated should be arranged after the ruling said to abrogate it is a well-known instance of the order of the muṣḥaf not being the same as the order of revelation.
Verse 241 generalises the ruling of matāʿ. The three occurrences of this word in the sūra draw a course:
| Verse | For whom | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| 2/236 | Those divorced before being touched | "The one of ample means according to his measure, the one of straitened means according to his" — ḥaqqan ʿala'l-muḥsinīn |
| 2/240 | Those whose husbands have died | Up to a year, without being turned out of the house |
| 2/241 | Divorced women (in general) | bi'l-maʿrūf — ḥaqqan ʿala'l-muttaqīn |
The third link opens so as to take in the first two: no condition is now counted, no situation distinguished. A provision is laid down for all divorced women.
This closing expression occurs several times in the legal section of the sūra, and each time it is placed at the end of a financial obligation:
The structure itself is worth recording. The obligation is tied not to a penalty or to a means of enforcement but to the moral attribute of the one addressed: "a duty upon those who guard themselves", "a duty upon those who do good".
I record this as my own reading: this is not a weakening of the ruling but a fixing of the place where it is applied. An obligation whose amount is left to maʿrūf cannot in any case be measured exactly by a court; knowing this, the verse commits the oversight to the person's own attribute. The word حَقّ reinforces this: what is at issue is not a recommendation but a right — it has a claimant.
And note: the word muttaqī is the word that says at the second verse of the sūra to whom the Book shows the way. The sūra uses its own opening word as the measure of a financial obligation.
يُبَيِّنُ — root ب-ي-ن: to distinguish, to make plain. Form II states that the work is done gradually and in detail. That is exactly what was done throughout the section: situations were separated one by one and each was given its own ruling.
لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ — "that you may use your reason." That the root ʿaql means "to bind" was recorded at verse 44.
And this closing is familiar in the sūra: the story of the cow had ended with the same sentence — "…and He shows you His signs; that perhaps you may use your reason" (2/73). In both places, after details set one after another, the reader is asked to bind them to one another.
I record this as my own reading: that the legal sections close with a call to reason shows that the rulings are presented not as a list to be memorised but as a whole in which the measure between them is to be seen. And the measure repeated in this section is plain and is the same in every one of the separate rulings: the prohibition of causing harm, and the leaving of a door of widening beside every ruling.