Tafsir al-Jalalayn

O Prophet meaning to address his community on account of what follows; or it means say to them when you men divorce women when you intend to effect a divorce divorce them by their prescribed period at the beginning of it such that the divorce is effected while she is pure and has not been touched sexually based on the Prophet’s s explaining it in this way as reported by the two Shaykhs al-Bukhārī and Muslim. And count the prescribed period keep record of it so that you may repeal your decision before it is concluded; and fear God your Lord obey Him in His commands and prohibitions. Do not expel them from their houses nor let them go forth from them until their prescribed period is concluded unless they commit a blatant act of indecency such as adultery read mubayyana or mubayyina corresponding respectively to buyyinat ‘one that has been proven’ and bayyina ‘blatant’ in which case they are brought out in order to carry out the prescribed legal punishment against them. And those mentioned stipulations are God’s bounds; and whoever transgresses the bounds of God has verily wronged his soul. You never know it may be that God will bring something new to pass afterwards after the divorce such as a retraction in the event that it was the first or second declaration of divorce.

Then when they have reached their term when they are near the end of their prescribed period retain them by taking them back honourably without coercion or separate from them honourably leave them to conclude their waiting period and do not compel them to go back to you. And call to witness two just men from among yourselves to witness the retraction or the separation and bear witness for the sake of God and not merely for the sake of what is being witnessed or for the sake of the man. By this is exhorted whoever believes in God and the Last Day. And whoever fears God He will make a way out for him from the distress of this world and the Hereafter;

and He will provide for him from whence he never expected from whence it never occurred to him. And whoever puts his trust in God regarding his affairs He will suffice him. Indeed God fulfils His command His will a variant reading for bālighun amrahu has the genitive construction bālighu amrihi. Verily God has ordained for everything even things such as comfort and hardship a measure a fixed time.

And as for those of your women who read allā’ī or allā’i in both instances no longer expect to menstruate if you have any doubts about their waiting period their prescribed waiting period shall be three months and also for those who have not yet menstruated because of their young age their period shall also be three months — both cases apply to other than those whose spouses have died; for these latter their period is prescribed in the verse they shall wait by themselves for four months and ten days Q. 2234. And those who are pregnant their term the conclusion of their prescribed waiting period if divorced or if their spouses be dead shall be when they deliver. And whoever fears God He will make matters ease for him in this world and in the Hereafter.

That which is mentioned regarding the prescribed waiting period is God’s command His ruling which He has revealed to you. And whoever fears God He will absolve him of his misdeeds and magnify the reward for him.

Lodge them that is the divorced women where you dwell that is to say in some part of your dwellings in accordance with your means min wujdikum is an explicative supplement or a substitution of what precedes it with the repetition of the same preposition min and with an implied genitive annexation in other words something like amkinat sa‘atikum ‘house them in the places of your means and not otherwise’ and do not harass them so as to put them in straits with regard to accommodation such that they would then need to go elsewhere or be in need of maintenance to provide for themselves so that they are forced to ransom themselves from you. And if they are pregnant then maintain them until they deliver. Then if they suckle for you your children whom you have from them give them their wages for the suckling and consult together with them honourably with kindness for the sake of the children by mutual agreement on a fixed wage for the suckling. But if you both make difficulties regarding the suckling with either the father withholding payment of the wage or the mother refraining from performing it then another woman will suckle the child for him for the father and the mother should not be compelled to suckle it.

Let the affluent man expend on the divorced or the suckling woman out of his affluence. And let he whose provision has been straitened restricted for him expend of what God has given him in accordance with his means. God does not charge any soul save except with what He has given it. God will assuredly bring about ease after hardship — which He indeed did by way of the Muslim conquests.

And how many ka’ayyin the kāf is the genitive prepositional particle which has been added to ayy ‘which’ to give the meaning of kam ‘how many’ a town — that is to say many a town meaning its inhabitants disobeyed the command of its Lord and His messengers then We called it in the Hereafter — even if it has not yet arrived God says so because of the fact that it will surely come to pass — to a severe reckoning and chastised it with a dire chastisement read nukran or nukuran namely the chastisement of the Fire.

So it tasted the evil consequences of its conduct the punishment for it and the consequence of its conduct was utter loss failure and destruction.

God has prepared for them a severe chastisement the reiteration of the threat is for emphasis. So fear God O people of pith O possessors of intellect you who believe! this is a description of the vocative or an explication of it God has certainly revealed to you a source of remembrance that is the Qur’ān;

a messenger that is Muhammad (s) rasūlan is in the accusative because of an implied verb that is to say wa-arsala ‘and He sent you a messenger’ reciting to you the clear signs of God read mubayyanāt or mubayyināt as explained above that He may bring forth those who believe and perform righteous deeds after the arrival of the remembrance and the Messenger from darkness the disbelief to which they adhered to light the faith that was established in them after a life of disbelief. And those who believe in God and act righteously He will admit them a variant reading has the first person plural nudkhilhu ‘We will admit them’ into gardens underneath which rivers flow wherein they will abide forever. God has verily made a good provision for him namely the provision of Paradise the bliss of which never ends.

God it is Who created seven heavens and of earth the like thereof that is to say seven earths. The command the revelation descends between them between the heavens and the earth Gabriel descends with it from the seventh heaven to the seventh earth that you may know li-ta‘lamū is semantically connected to an omitted clause that is to say ‘He apprises you of this creation and this sending down that you may know’ that God has power over all things and that God encompasses all things in knowledge.