Towards Understanding the Qur'an. Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi
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or who will be their defender there? (110) He who does either evil or wrongs himself, and then asks for Allah’s forgiveness, will find Allah All-Forgiving, All- Compassionate. (111) He who commits a sin, commits it only to his detriment. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise. (112) But he who commits either a fault or a sin, and then casts it upon an innocent person, lays upon himself the burden of a false charge and a flagrant sin.
74 Whoever commits a breach of trust with others in fact commits first a breach of trust with his own self.
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Al-Nisa’ 4: 113–15
(113) (O Messenger), but for Allah’s favour and mercy upon you, a party of them had resolved to mislead you, yet they only misled themselves, and could not have harmed you in any way.75 Allah revealed to you the Book and Wisdom, and He taught you what you knew not. Great indeed has been Allah’s favour upon you.
(114) Most of their secret conferrings are devoid of good, unless one secretly enjoins charity, good deeds, and setting the affairs of men right. We shall grant whoever does that seeking to please Allah a great reward. (115) As for him who sets himself against the Messenger and follows a path other than that of the believers even after true guidance had become clear to him, ▶
75 Even if some people succeeded in their design to obtain from the Prophet (peace be on him) a wrong judgement in their favour by presenting a false account of facts, the real loss would have been theirs rather than the Prophet’s (peace be on him). For the real culprits in the sight of God are the perpetrators of that fraud and not the Prophet (peace be on him). Whoever obtains a judgement in his favour by tricking the courts deludes himself into believing that by such tricks he can bring right to his side; right remains with its true claimant notwithstanding the judgements that might be obtained by fraud and deception.
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Al-Nisa’ 4: 116–19
We will let him go to the way he has turned to, and We will cast him into Hell – an evil destination.
(116) Truly it is only associat- ing others with Allah in His Divinity that Allah does not forgive, and forgives anything besides that to whomsoever He wills. Whoever associates others with Allah in His Divinity has indeed strayed far away. (117) Rather than call upon Him, they call upon goddesses, and call upon a rebellious Satan76 (118) upon whom Allah has laid His curse. He said (to Allah): “I will take to myself an appointed portion of Your servants77 (119) and shall lead them astray, and shall engross them in vain desires, ▶
76 No one sets up Satan as his “god” in the sense that he makes him the object of his ritual worship and declares him to be God in so many words. The way to make Satan one’s god is to entrust one’s reins to him and let oneself be drawn helplessly in whichever direction Satan wants; the relationship between the two becomes, then, one of worshipper and worshipped. This shows that either absolute, unreserved obedience to or blind following of anybody is tantamount to worshipping him, so that whoever indulges in this kind of absolute obedience is guilty of worshipping a “god” other than the One True God.
77 This shows that Satan is determined to lay his claim to a portion of man’s time, of his effort and labour, of his energies and capacities, of his material belongings, and of his offspring, and would somehow trick him into devoting a sizeable portion of all these to his cause.
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Al-Nisa’ 4: 120–2
and I shall command them and they will cut off the ears of the cattle,78 and I shall command them and they will disfigure Allah’s creation.”79 He who took Satan rather than Allah for his guardian has indeed suffered a manifest loss. (120) Satan makes promises to them and fills them with vain hopes, but whatever he promises them is merely delusion. (121) For these people, their abode shall be Hell and from there they shall find no way of escape. (122) But those who believe and do good, We shall cause them to enter the Gardens beneath which rivers flow. Here they will abide for ever. ▶
78 The reference here is to a superstitious Arabian custom. It was customary among the Arabs that after a camel had given birth to five or ten young to slit her ears and let her go in the name of their deity; they considered it forbidden to put her to any work. Likewise, the male camel that had generated ten offspring was consecrated to some deity. The slitting of ears symbolized this consecration.
79 To alter God’s creation in some respect does not mean changing its original form. Hence the alteration of God’s creation, which is characterized as Satanic, consists in using a thing not for the purpose for which it was created by God. In other words, all acts performed in violation either of one’s true nature or of the intrinsic nature of these other objects are the result of the misleading promptings of Satan. These include, for instance, sodomy, birth control, monasticism, celibacy, sterilization of either men or women, turning males into eunuchs, diverting females from the functions entrusted to them by nature and driving them to perform the functions for which men were created.
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Al-Nisa’ 4: 123–7
This is Allah’s promise in truth and whose word is truer than Allah’s?
(123) It is neither your fancies nor the fancies of the People of the Book which matter. Whoever does evil shall reap its consequence and will find none to protect and help him against Allah. (124) Whoever does good and believes – whether he is male or female – such shall enter the Garden, and they shall not be wronged in the slightest. (125) And whose way of life could be better than that of he who submits his whole being to Allah, does good, and follows exclusively the way of Abraham whom Allah took for a friend? (126) Whatever is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to Allah; Allah encompasses everything.
(127) They ask you to pro- nounce laws concerning women.80 ▶
80 The actual query about women is not spelled out directly. The judgement pronounced a little later in response to that query, however, makes it abundantly clear what the query was.
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Al-Nisa’ 4: 128
Say: “Allah pronounces to you concerning them, and reminds you of the injunctions which were recited to you in the Book about female orphans whom you do not give what has been ordained for them and whom you wish to marry (out of greed),”81 and the command- ments relating to the children who are weak and helpless. Allah directs you to treat the orphans with justice. Allah is well aware of whatever good you do.
(128) If a woman82 fears either ill-treatment or aversion from her husband it is not wrong for the husband and wife to bring about reconciliation among themselves ▶
81 The words of the text
82 The actual response to the query begins here. The question is how a person who had more than one wife can comply with the injunctions to be just and equitable towards all of them.