al-Taḥrīm 66:10-12 — Four women

The last three verses of the sūra are one of the most striking structures in the Qurʾān. Before entering the verses one by one one must see the structure itself, because the structure says more than the verses.

The Qurʾān gives two mathals — one for those who deny, one for those who believe. And the subject of both examples is women.

Look at the table. The condition of the husbands and the fate of the wives are in exact inverse proportion. Two wives of prophets lose, the wife of a tyrant gains. And the fourth example breaks the system from outside by leaving the marriage column entirely empty.

This cannot be an accidental arrangement. What the structure sets up is a single principle which I shall treat in detail below: salvation neither comes with marriage nor goes with marriage.

And one thing more: the verses mention the own acts of all four. For the first two khānatā (they betrayed), for the third qālat (she said — a prayer), for the fourth aḥṣanat, ṣaddaqat, kānat. That is, each is mentioned by what she did; not by the house she was in.

Root م ث ل (m-th-l): to resemble, to be equal. Mithl — like, equal. Mathal — an example, a comparison, a likeness. Timthāl — a statue, an image. The Turkish misal, temsil, emsal, mesela are from this family.

ضَرَبَ مَثَلًا — word for word "he struck an example". In Arabic the verb ḍaraba is used over a very wide field (to set out on a road, to pitch a tent, to mint coin, to give an example) and the usage here is idiomatic.

The explanation the lexicographers give is this: to give an example is like striking a seal or a coin — an abstract sense is made visible by being stamped into a concrete mould. I relay this explanation as a possibility.

And note: the "mathal" given here is not an invented comparison. In some of the places where the Qurʾān uses the word mathal there are descriptive comparisons (a spider's web, a fire going out); here, however, real persons are mentioned. That is, a mathal is not an imagined story; it is an example case chosen from history.

Ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan li'lladhīna kafaru'mraʾata Nūḥin wa'mraʾata Lūṭ, kānatā taḥta ʿabdayni min ʿibādinā ṣāliḥayni fa-khānatāhumā fa-lam yughniyā ʿanhumā mina'llāhi shayʾan wa qīla'dkhula'n-nāra maʿa'd-dākhilīn

"God set forth, for those who deny, the example of the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot. Both were under two righteous servants from among Our servants; but they betrayed them. Those two could ward off from them nothing that came from God. And it was said: 'Enter the fire, along with those who enter.'"

In the discussion of Nūḥ a list was made of what Sūrat Nūḥ does not recount, and in that list stood this item: "There is no wife of Noah (she occurs at al-Taḥrīm 66/10)."

The finding recorded in that section was this: the omissions in Sūrat Nūḥ are not an omission but a choice — that sūra took not the event side of the story but the effort side.

Now the person not mentioned in that sūra is mentioned here. And the manner of the mention is striking: Sūrat Nūḥ recounted a prophet's effort over twenty-eight verses; this verse says in a single sentence that a person from that same prophet's house took no share in that effort.

Setting the two texts side by side gives the sharpest consequence of the boundary recorded in Nūḥ — the boundary between the messenger and the verdict: the messenger is not the owner of the verdict even in his own house.

Root م ر أ (m-r-ʾ): a human being, a person. Marʾ — a person (a man); marʾa — a woman. From the same root come murūʾa (manliness, humanity) and imruʾ (a person).

The striking side of the word is this: Arabic has two words for "spouse", and the verse uses one here and the other elsewhere.

• زَوْج (zawj) — a pair, one of a couple. Root ز و ج: two things forming a pair. This word is used both for the man and for the woman and is common in the Qurʾān. The form azwāj occurred in the first, third and fifth verses of this sūra too.
• امْرَأَة (imraʾa) — a woman; and in the construct state, "the wife of so-and-so".

The difference between the two words has been treated in the classical commentaries. The distinction commonly recorded is this: zawj is used in cases where the two parties really form a pair; imraʾa is preferred in cases where the pairhood remains deficient in some respect — such as a difference of belief or the absence of a child.

As proof of this distinction the Qurʾān's own usages are adduced: imraʾa for the wives of Noah and Lot, imraʾa again for the wife of Pharaoh, imraʾa again for the wife of Abraham (Ibrāhīm) — in the context of the tidings of a child; whereas zawj in the contexts of the garden and of ordinary marriage.

I do not impose this as a rule and I enter this note: there are also places in the Qurʾān where the word imraʾa is used without implying any deficiency. To claim that the distinction works everywhere would be forced. But the usage in this verse is one of the clearest examples supporting the distinction — because the whole matter of the verse is precisely the pairhood's not having worked.

Kānatā taḥta ʿabdayni — word for word "they were under two servants".

This is an idiomatic expression used in Arabic for marriage and it means "to be under someone's marriage contract". Turkish has the same idiom (nikâhı altında, "under his marriage contract") and it probably passed over from Arabic.

The historical background of the idiom has to do with the legal structure of the period, and I write this not as an endorsement but as a note of history: this use of the word is the trace of a language in which marriage was thought of as a relation of protection.

And by using precisely this idiom the verse refutes what the idiom implies. "To be under" implies a protection; the verse says that that protection did not take place. The choice of word and the verdict of the sentence work against one another.

I record this as my own reading.

The most striking choice of word in the verse is here and it is generally skipped.

The verse speaks of two prophets. And it does not mention them as prophets. It does not say nabiyyayn, it does not say rasūlayn. It says عَبْدَيْنِ: two servants.

Moreover it reinforces the construct twice over: ʿabdayni min ʿibādinā — "two servants from among Our servants". The same root twice, one after the other.

The root ع ب د (ʿ-b-d) was taken up at al-Fātiḥa 1/5 and mentioned once more in Nūḥ; I do not repeat it. In one sentence: the concrete image of the root is a road's being levelled by being trodden underfoot (ṭarīqun muʿabbad), and at its centre lies walking in submission.

But why has this word been chosen? The logic of the verse requires it.

What the verse says is this: the position of these two persons was not enough to save their wives. Had the verse mentioned them as "two prophets", the sentence would have been a comparison of ranks. By saying "two servants" it brings the position down from the start to the plane of servanthood.

And the consequence of this is: the reason for their not being able to save was not their insufficiency; it was no one's being a saviour. A prophet too is a servant; and a servant cannot take on the reckoning of another servant.

The finding recorded at al-Baqara 2/124 holds good here once more: there too the rule was said to a prophet who was asking, and it was not bent for anyone.

صَالِحَيْنِ — root ص ل ح (ṣ-l-ḥ): a thing's not being spoiled, being in working order, being sound. Ṣalāḥ (soundness), iṣlāḥ (setting right), maṣlaḥa (what is to the benefit of a matter), ṣulḥ (the repairing of a broken relation) are from the same root.

At the centre of the word lies not a moral loftiness but the not having broken down of workability. For a tool to be ṣāliḥ is for it to be working.

And note: this adjective occurred in the fourth verse too — ṣāliḥu'l-muʾminīn. The same word, twice in the sūra, in both places in a context of support or of position.

The word in this verse most open to being misunderstood is here and it must be treated carefully.

Root خ و ن (kh-w-n). The central sense of the root in Arabic is this: to diminish something entrusted to one, not to hand back the trust in full.

Khiyāna is defined in Arabic as the opposite of amāna. And this definition gives exactly what the word is:

• أَمَانَة (amāna) — root أ م ن: trust. To leave a thing with someone in the confidence that it will be asked back.
• خِيَانَة (khiyāna) — not to give back in full what was left; to diminish it from within.

That is, betrayal is by its root a diminishing. Not the denial of the whole trust — that is another thing; the withholding of a part of the trust.

The lexicographers record the "hiddenness" dimension of the root as well: khāʾinatu'l-aʿyun — "the treachery of the eyes" (it occurs in Sūrat al-Muʾmin), that is, what the glance steals away in secret. Betrayal is not done openly; the diminishing is done so as not to be noticed.

Now, the question of what this betrayal was.

In English the sentence "his wife betrayed him" comes to almost a single meaning. In Arabic and in this verse the case is not so, and this must be written plainly.

In the classical tradition of exegesis there is an extremely strong agreement about what this betrayal was: the betrayal is in the religious field, not in the field of marital fidelity. That is, both worked from inside their own houses for the other side, against the cause their husbands carried.

This is not a minority view; it is the position of the overwhelming majority of the exegetes, and its ground is sound as well:

First: the Qurʾān's own word. The verse does not use the word zinā; it uses khiyāna. And khiyāna, as was seen above, is a diminishing done against a trust. What is a trust in a prophet's house is the message carried.

Second: the general acceptance regarding the prophets. It is widely recorded in the tradition that no prophet's wife is charged with unchastity; it is noted that this has to do with an acceptance concerning the standing of prophethood.

Third and strongest: the Qurʾān's own narrative. In the places where the story of Lot is recounted, it is stated plainly that Lot's wife was among those who stayed behind and that she was destroyed together with her people (e.g. al-Aʿrāf 7/83; Hūd 11/81; at al-Ḥijr 15/60 al-ghābirīn — those who stayed behind). That is, her position is described by her being on the side of her people.

Fourth: the verse's own logic. The verse gives these two women as "an example for those who deny". That is, what is at issue is not a moral fault but a choice of side. The example is built upon denial.

When I combine these four grounds, the reading that the betrayal is in the religious field seems to me clearly the stronger. I write this as a preference; but it is a preference on which the classical exegesis is almost unanimous.

And one further note: the verse does not say what the betrayal was. The attitude the sūra has kept up from the beginning works here too: the act is named, its detail is not given.

The verdict of the verse is here.

Root غ ن ي (gh-n-y): to have no need, to suffice for oneself. Ghinā — wealth; but the central sense in Arabic is not "to have much property" but not to be in need of another. Ghanī — self-sufficient. And this is one of the names of God; indeed it will occur in Sūrat al-Taghābun too (wa'llāhu ghaniyyun ḥamīd, 64/6).

The formula أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُ — "he warded (a thing) off from him, he made him free of need, he profited him." The formula recounts one person's standing in another's place and meeting his need.

The construction of the sentence sets up a zero: lam yughniyā … shayʾan — "nothing at all". Indefinite and in a negative context; in Arabic this combination states complete negation. It leaves not even a partial benefit.

And this structure is a formula repeated in the Qurʾān. The same root, the same negation, different subjects:

• For wealth and children: "Neither their wealth nor their children will profit them anything against God" (Āl ʿImrān 3/10, and the like).
• For Abū Lahab: "his wealth and what he earned did not profit him" (Tabbat 111/2) treated in the discussion of al-Masad — the same root, the same structure.
• And here: for prophet husbands.

Setting these three examples side by side completes the list the Qurʾān builds: wealth does not profit, children do not profit, a prophet husband does not profit.

That is, the verse adds not an exception but the most unexpected item on the list.

The last three words of the sentence are worth pausing over.

وَقِيلَ — a passive verb: "it was said." The speaker is not stated. This is common in the Qurʾān's scenes of the resurrection and its effect is that the verdict is tied not to a person but directly to the situation.

مَعَ الدَّاخِلِينَ — "along with those who enter."

This expression may look superfluous. "Enter the fire" would have sufficed. What does it add?

It adds this: there is no privilege. The two women do not enter the fire with a special standing — neither a lighter nor a heavier one. Along with everyone, an ordinary entry.

And this is the final stress of the whole matter of the verse. From the beginning the verse had been recounting that a position was of no use; the last expression says that the position was of no use in any direction. Being the wife of a prophet neither saves nor brings a separate treatment.

The sentence recorded at al-Baqara 2/134 — "what they earned is theirs, what you earn is yours" — appears here turned into a scene.