#azfar ibn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quranreadalong · 6 years

Text

#128, Surah 24

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 128

We’re in for a real treat this week fam. An-Nur (The Light) is from Medina, around 627-628 AD--a few months before or after the failed siege of the city. It has less than 70 ayat, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in Quality Content. We have a lot to talk about here. Mohammed’s family drama included!

In fact, we get started on that topic right away. To start us off, Mohammed offers the following:

The adulterer and the adulteress, scourge ye each one of them (with) a hundred stripes. And let not pity for the twain withhold you from obedience to Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day.

Oof! Bad! For a detailed discussion of the many accepted forms of punishment for zina, or sexual indecency, and how they came to be--including house arrest, financial punishment, death, and the corporal punishment indicated above--pls check here for fun stoning times. We have juicier topics to cover today.

No one should marry men or women found guilty of zina except fellow adulterers or idolators.

(For the record, I’m using “adultery” because it’s the nearest English equivalent, but Mohammed used zina to describe all sorts of things, not just PIV intercourse. While zina was a terrible crime that was sometimes punished by death, Mohammed said that as long as you’re a Muslim and not a polytheist, Allah will still let you into heaven even if you're guilty of it, so!)

Now then. Why are we talking about adultery today, exactly? Well, that brings us to an episode of The Prophet Mohammed Presents: All My Wives.

Let me quote from this long hadith narrated by Aisha, who at this time was around 14 years old.

Whenever Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) intended to go on a journey, he used to draw lots among his wives and would take with him the one on whom the lot had fallen. Once he drew lots when he wanted to carry out a Ghazwa [military expedition], and the lot came upon me. ... We carried on our journey, and when Allah's Apostle had finished his Ghazwa and returned and we approached Medina, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) ordered to proceed at night. When the army was ordered to resume the homeward journey, I got up and walked on till I left the army (camp) behind. When I had answered the call of nature ... A necklace of mine made of Jaz Azfar (a kind of black bead) was broken and I looked for it and my search for it detained me.

Aisha was the wife Mohammed chose to accompany him on some exciting adventure of terrorizing Bedouin clans. She was carried around in a covered seat called a howdah (or hawdaj) on the back of a camel, which looks like this.

This is because Mohammed had ordered his wives to totally seclude themselves from men by this point, which we’ll get to later.

When their task was accomplished, the group returned home. On the way back, Aisha got up to go to the bathroom one night and lost part of her necklace. The men in charge of her camel didn’t look inside to make sure she was in the howdah (because they were not supposed to look at her), so they took off without her.

those people did not feel the lightness of the howdah while raising it up, and I was still a young lady. They drove away the camel and proceeded. Then I found my necklace after the army had gone. I came to their camp but found nobody therein so I went to the place where I used to stay, thinking that they would miss me and come back in my search.

Aisha lingered nearby, assuming that the men would realize their mistake and come back for her soon.

While I was sitting at my place, I felt sleepy and slept. Safwan ... was behind the army. He had started in the last part of the night and reached my stationing place in the morning and saw the figure of a sleeping person. He came to me and recognized me on seeing me for he used to see me before veiling. ... he made his shecamel kneel down whereupon he trod on its forelegs and I mounted it.

One of Mohammed’s soldiers, Safwan, had been separated from the rest of the troops and came upon her while she was sleeping at the campsite. He gave her a ride.

Then Safwan set out, leading the she-camel that was carrying me, till we met the army while they were resting during the hot midday. Then whoever was meant for destruction, fell in destruction, and the leader of the Ifk (false statement) was `Abdullah bin Ubai bin Salul. After this we arrived at Medina and I became ill for one month while the people were spreading the forged statements of the people of the Ifk, and I was not aware of anything thereof. But ... I was no longer receiving from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) the same kindness as I used to receive when I fell sick. Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) would enter upon me, say a greeting and add, "How is that (lady)?" and then depart. That aroused my suspicion

She returned to Medina and fell ill, but while she was sick, schemes were afoot. The “ifk”, also known as the slander, is the topic of this part of the surah. Unbeknownst to her, some of Mohammed’s men had accused her of sleeping with Safwan the night that she was separated from the army. Aisha noticed that Mohammed was not treating his beloved child bride in his usual way, and was acting distant. She finally learned of what was going on when another woman told her, then she told her mother about it. Her mother suggested that one of Mohammed’s other wives, or one of their family members, was behind it.

My mother said, "O my daughter! Take it easy, for by Allah, there is no charming lady who is loved by her husband who has other wives as well, but that those wives would find fault with her." ... That night I kept on weeping the whole night till the morning. My tears never stopped, nor did I sleep

Mohammed’s pride was badly wounded by all this, so he consulted with some of his bros concerning the topic--how to determine Aisha’s guilt (Allah was in the shower at the time and couldn’t answer the phone) and what to do with her if she was in fact guilty. Ali said that it would be no big deal if Mo just tossed her aside regardless of the truth (Aisha would never forget this), but suggested asking one of Aisha’s slaves if she’d seen anything.

while I was still weeping, Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) called `Ali bin Abi Talib and Usama bin Zaid when the Divine Inspiration delayed, in order to consult them as to the idea of divorcing his wife. Usama ... said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! She is your wife, and we do not know anything about her except good." But `Ali bin Abi Talib said, "... Allah does not impose restrictions on you; and there are plenty of women other than her. If you however, ask (her) slave girl, she will tell you the truth." `Aisha added: So Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) called for Barira and said, "O Barira! Did you ever see anything which might have aroused your suspicion? (as regards Aisha)”. Barira said, “... I have never seen anything regarding Aisha which I would blame her for except that she is a girl of immature age who sometimes sleeps and leaves the dough of her family unprotected so that the domestic goats come and eat it.”

The slave called Aisha immature but said she has never seen her with any men. Mohammed was now very irritated at Abdallah ibn Ubayy--who you may remember as one of the “munafiqun” who helped the Jews and didn’t want to go to Tabouk. He was the chief of one of the tribes of Medina, the Banu Khazraj.

So Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) got up (and addressed) the people an asked for somebody who would take revenge on `Abdullah bin Ubai bin Salul then.

This set off an argument between the Khazraj and the other main (formerly) polytheistic tribe of Medina, the Banu Aws. Mohammed just sighed and presumably began banging his head against a wall.

So the two tribes of Al-Aus and Al-Khazraj got excited till they were on the point of fighting with each other while Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) was standing on the pulpit.

Aisha, meanwhile, was miserable and still locked in her house, spending all her time crying and fearful. Mohammed came to Aisha and told her to confess to Allah if she had done something wrong, but she refused, because she wasn’t guilty of anything. At that exact moment, Allah finally got out of the damn shower and informed Mohammed that Aisha was innocent. The story’s epilogue states that Mohammed never did “deal with” Abdallah, who never admitted his “guilt” and could never be proven as the source of the rumors. Because he was the leader of one of Medina’s important tribes, killing him without evidence would have been an issue. Some others did admit to spreading the gossip, though, including the sister of one of Mohammed’s wives, as Aisha’s mother suspected; a poet named Hassan ibn Thabit, who was a messy bitch who lived for drama; and, curiously, a man from Aisha’s own extended family. They were admonished but Mohammed told everyone to just forget about all of it and never speak of it again.

As for the truth of what happened that night, look, idk. This hadith is from Aisha herself, and she would obviously want to present herself as innocently as possible. There are other ahadith where she seems to stretch the truth a tad in order to protect her reputation, like this one, which we’ll see much later on. Maybe Safwan was really hot and Aisha was sick of being married to an old guy, I wouldn’t blame her. But it’s more likely that she really was innocent--I mean the girl had been indoctrinated and brainwashed since childhood, the concept of infidelity probably never even occurred to her. And Safwan would’ve had to possess balls of steel to screw around with Mohammed’s youngest and favorite wife. So I tend to believe the allegations were false rumors. Whether Abdallah was truly involved or whether he was just the Token Guy To Blame as always, I can’t tell you.

Let’s get back to the Quran now. In 24:4, Mohammed says that people who accuse “honorable women” of adultery without evidence/witnesses/proof should be lashed 80 times, unless they say they’re sorry and repent. Uh... I guess that’s neutral, altogether? Corporal punishment is bad, but falsely accusing women of being adulterers is also bad, right? It evens out.

If you are accusing your own wife of zina, though, then your own testimony is all that’s needed. A man has to invoke a curse upon himself, called lian, saying that Allah can punish him if he’s lying. But if the wife says she’s innocent and also invokes the curse of Allah upon herself, telling Allah to send his wrath upon her if she’s lying, then what?! It’s a curse-off... one’s gotta be lying, but Allah’s punishment isn’t coming down upon either, so who is the truthful one?! Lo! It is like one of those games with the two-headed dragons, with one head that tells the truth and the other that only lies. Ibn Kathir collects some ahadith on this matter here if you want to see how Mohammed “resolved” this issue, though that one was only “resolved” because the woman was pregnant and her kid was obviously not her husband’s. Without that evidence, you’re just left sitting around waiting for Allah’s curse to materialize upon the liar. Tbh because it’s all so circular I feel like it’s ultimately neutral?

Now then... let’s talk about “the slander”. In 24:10, Mohammed thanks Allah for revealing the truth to him. Those who spread the lies, he says, are a “gang” and the one ultimately responsible for starting the rumor will be met with The Doom. He scolds the Muslims in general for not immediately shutting down the rumors, given that the accusers couldn’t identify any witnesses to the alleged affair. It’s a good thing that Allah is in a good mood today, he tells them, or else they’d all be doomed for their gossip, which was a grievous sin. They shouldn’t have even dared speculate about it, and they must never do this again.

Like... this is a bit much, but in context it’s at least understandable and neutral. You don’t accuse a cult leader’s child bride of being a ho and expect him to take it well.

This has been a long section because of that hadith, so I’ll leave it there for now.

NEXT TIME: We finish up the Slander Debacle and move onto forced modesty rules!!!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 128

Ayat: 17

Good: 0

Neutral: 15 (24:1, 24:4-17)

Bad: 2 (24:2-3)

Kuffar hell counter: 0

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

#quranreadalong #surah 24 #an nur

10 notes · View notes