al-Ṭalāq 65:4

Wa'llāʾī yaʾisna mina'l-maḥīḍi min nisāʾikum ini'rtabtum fa-ʿiddatuhunna thalāthatu ashhurin wa'llāʾī lam yaḥiḍn, wa ulātu'l-aḥmāli ajaluhunna an yaḍaʿna ḥamlahunn, wa man yattaqi'llāha yajʿal lahu min amrihi yusrā

"Those of your women who have despaired of menstruation — if you are in doubt — their waiting period is three months; and so too those who have not yet menstruated. And those who are with child: their term is that they lay down their burden. And whoever guards himself against God, He grants him ease in his affair."

At first sight this verse looks technical and narrow. Read that way, something is missed, and I want to say it first.

In Sūrat al-Baqara the general rule for the waiting period had been given: ثَلَٰثَةَ قُرُوٓءٍ — three qurūʾ (al-Baqara 2/228). This is a measure that works for women who menstruate; it ties the period to the woman's own bodily cycle.

But this measure does not fit everyone. There are three groups that fall outside the measure:

1. Those who have ceased to menstruate — the cycle has ended. 2. Those who have not yet menstruated — the cycle has not begun. 3. Those who are pregnant — the cycle is suspended.

The general rule cannot be applied to these three groups. And because it cannot, the women in these three groups fall outside the rule — that is, without a waiting period, therefore without a term, therefore without protection.

The verse closes exactly this gap.

For this reason to read the verse as a passage of "rulings about menstruation" is to miss the work it does. The work the verse does is this: to complete the coverage. A separate measure is set for every case the general rule could not reach, so that no woman can be left outside on the ground that "there is no ruling for my case".

And the consequence of this is concrete: a woman with no waiting period has no right to lodging, no right to maintenance, and no possibility of return. The period is the bearer of the whole protection. Giving everyone a period means giving everyone a protection.

I offer this as a proposed reading. The wording of the verse completes the coverage; that the purpose of this completion is protection is my own inference — but the rest of the sūra (lodging, maintenance, the wage for suckling) supports the inference.

ٱلَّٰٓـِٔى (allāʾī) — the feminine plural of alladhī: "the women who…". It is transmitted in the sources that the word is read in the forms allāʾī, allāʾi and allā; since the variant reading does not change the meaning I do not dwell on it and I give no imām's name.

يَئِسْنَ — root ي أ س (y-ʾ-s): to give up hope. The derivatives yaʾs (despair) and maʾyūs (one who has despaired) are from this root. The verb here names a bodily condition by its psychological counterpart: to have "given up hope" of menstruation.

This manner of naming is striking. The verse does not give a physiological definition (it sets no age limit, it specifies no period); it takes as its measure the woman's own judgement about her own condition. Given the resources of knowledge in that period this is a practical choice; and at the same time it ties the measure to the person being measured.

ٱلْمَحِيض — root ح ي ض (ḥ-y-ḍ). The concrete sense of the root: to flow, to overflow. The word is on the mafʿil pattern and can be read both as a verbal noun and as a noun of time/place.

إِنِ ٱرْتَبْتُمْ — "if you are in doubt"

Root ر ي ب (r-y-b): doubt, a suspicion that unsettles. This root was taken up in al-Baqara in connection with lā rayba fīh at 2/2: rayb is not an ordinary lack of information but the doubt that disturbs a person, that keeps working at him inside.

And the expression in irtabtum here is the most debated place in the verse. Doubt about what?

These readings are present in the classical sources. I adopt no preference among them, because the verse does not state the object of the doubt and none of the three readings runs against the wording of the verse.

وَٱلَّٰٓـِٔى لَمْ يَحِضْنَ — "those who have not menstruated"

The clause is added on top of the preceding ruling: their waiting period too is three months. The construction is grammatically elliptical (the ruling is not repeated; it is understood from the previous clause).

There is a disagreement about the scope of this expression and it would not be right to conceal it. The question debated in the sources is this: does the expression cover only those who have not yet menstruated on account of youth, or also adult women who for some reason do not menstruate?

This disagreement is real and has been treated at length in the literature of jurisprudence; and how the waiting period of a woman whose menstruation has ceased for some reason is to be computed is a separate matter of debate. I do not settle it here. This commentary does not issue legal rulings; for a ruling to be acted upon, the works of jurisprudence must be consulted.

One further warning. Debates unrelated to its subject have been conducted over this verse and are being conducted today. The wording of the verse specifies no age, commands no practice and contains no encouragement; it sets a measure of computation. To make a text say what it does not say — in whichever direction — is not exegesis. Where the verse is silent I am silent.

حَمْل — root ح م ل (ḥ-m-l): to load, to carry. Ḥaml is the load carried; and from this, pregnancy. From the same root ḥammāl, ḥamūla, taḥammul (bearing a load), ḥamīl.

The choice of the word sets up an image of itself: pregnancy is named as a load carried. And the end of the waiting period with the same image: يَضَعْنَ — from the root w-ḍ-ʿ, to lay down, to put down, to set down. Waḍʿu'l-ḥaml is the laying down of the load.

That is, the verse names birth not as "giving birth" but as "laying down the load". This is the ordinary usage of Arabic and I draw no special meaning from it; but the word's standing side by side with ajal (term of maturity) carries on the language of load–term–payment that the whole sūra carries.

The logic of the ruling. The pregnant woman's waiting period is tied not to months but to childbirth. This sometimes lengthens the period a great deal (a divorce at the beginning of the pregnancy), sometimes shortens it a great deal (a divorce days before the birth).

Why? Because one of the functions of the waiting period is that lineage not be confused — that to whom the child belongs should not remain uncertain. In pregnancy this uncertainty does not exist in any case; the child is there. The period is kept not for the removal of an uncertainty but for the completion of the birth.

And this has a consequence, written out plainly in the next verse of the sūra: maintenance is to be paid to the pregnant woman until the birth (65/6). That is, tying the waiting period to the birth means extending the protection to the birth as well.

The second taqwā sentence in the sūra. And it needs to be compared with the previous one (65/2-3), because the promise changes.

That is, the two promises answer different hardships: the first the absence of a way out and the absence of resource, the second the arduousness of the affair.

And the context of the second confirms this: verse 4 lists cases that are hard to compute. Ceased to menstruate, never menstruated, pregnant — each of these is a state that creates difficulty as to how the period is to be reckoned. And immediately after these the verse says "He grants him ease in his affair".

يُسْر — root ي س ر (y-s-r). Ease. The account the lexicographers give of the concrete sense of the root is this: yusr is a thing's being fluent, effortless, unobstructed. From the same root maysara (breadth, ease), taysīr (making easy), yasīr (easy, little).

مِنْ أَمْرِهِۦ — "of his affair". The word amr occurs here for the fourth time in the sūra, and I shall take that up separately in the closing section.

To whom does the pronoun refer? There are two readings: (a) "of his affair", that is, of the person's own affair; (b) "of His command", that is, of God's command — on this reading the ease comes from the divine command itself. Both readings are present in the sources; the first appears better suited to the context, but this is a preference and it is not binding.

And a connection: al-Muzzammil 73/20. There, in treating the lightening of the ruling, this was recorded: "the lightening is offered not as a concession but as a direction" and "the act is preserved, the measure is made elastic."

Here the same structure is set up by a different route. In al-Muzzammil the command itself was being lightened (fa'qraʾū mā tayassara — the same root, y-s-r). Here the command is not lightened; ease is promised to the one who applies the ruling. Two sūras produce two different solutions with the same root: one makes the load smaller, the other supports the one carrying it.

I record this as an observation. That the two texts use the same root is the text's datum; the distinction drawn between them is mine.