ولا تنكحوا ما نكح آباؤكم من النساء إلا ما قد سلف إنه كان فاحشة ومقتا وساء سبيلا
Wa lā tankiḥū mā nakaḥa ābāʾukum mina'l-nisāʾi illā mā qad salaf, innahū kāna fāḥishatan wa maqtan wa sāʾa sabīlā
"Do not marry the women your fathers married — except what is already past. That is an indecency, a thing loathed, and an evil way."
This verse is the continuation of the prohibition in the nineteenth. There it was said that women cannot be taken as an estate; here the most concrete form of that practice is named.
And there is a relation between it and the twenty-third verse: the twenty-third will give a whole list; this verse stands before the list and on its own.
I record this as an observation about word order: its being named separately shows that the ruling is newly laid down and meets a practice of the ones addressed. The list will come in the twenty-third verse; this verse abolishes a practice.
| Word | Root | What it looks to |
|---|---|---|
| فَٰحِشَة | ف-ح-ش — an ugliness exceeding all measure | The act itself |
| مَقْت | م-ق-ت — violent loathing, revulsion | The feeling it arouses |
| سَآءَ سَبِيلًا | س-و-أ — to be evil | Where it leads |
Three words name the act from three separate sides: what it is, what it makes one feel, where it leads.
The root م-ق-ت is worth recording: the lexicographers explain the word as "the most violent hatred". The word is rare in the Qurʾān and occurs at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/10 and 40/35; I rely on those treatments.
And there is a linguistic datum recorded in the classical sources, which I relate as it is transmitted: it is said that in pre-Islamic Arab society the term nikāḥ al-maqt ("the marriage of loathing") was used for a marriage of this kind. That the verse uses the same word is for this reason worth noticing; but I give this not as certain historical information but as a record transmitted in the sources.
The function of the clause must be recorded: the ruling is laid down looking forward, and no sanction is provided for the past. The same qualification will come once more at the end of the twenty-third verse.
I record this as my own reading: that where a new ruling is laid down, the life lived before the ruling is not judged by it, is a recurring qualification in this sūra.