Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 223 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:223

نِسَآؤُكُمْ حَرْثٌ لَّكُمْ فَأْتُوا۟ حَرْثَكُمْ أَنَّىٰ شِئْتُمْ ۖ وَقَدِّمُوا۟ لِأَنفُسِكُمْ ۚ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّكُم مُّلَـٰقُوهُ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ

“Your wives are a place of cultivation [i.e., sowing of seed] for you, so come to your place of cultivation however you wish and put forth [righteousness] for yourselves. And fear Allāh and know that you will meet Him. And give good tidings to the believers.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A wife is pictured as a cultivated field, tended and rested, where the future is sown; send good ahead, and remember you will meet Allah.

A reflection

A field is tended, not used

An old farmer in Syria once explained to his grandson why one field in three lay empty every year. 'The land is not a machine', he said. 'You rest it, you feed it, you walk it. Then it feeds you'.

'Your wives are a tilth for you'. Few phrases in the Quran are quoted more often, or more carelessly. Read quickly, it can sound like ownership: a plot of ground, a thing to be used. The image the first hearers had in mind was very different.

One lexicon defines ḥarth as casting seed into the ground and preparing it for crops. A classical commentator explains the ayah: your wives are where your children are sown. A modern commentary adds: like land that brings forth fruit. The picture is not of a possession. It is of cultivation, and of the future growing out of it.

Anyone who has farmed knows what that image demands. A field is prepared before it is sown. It is protected from trampling. It is watered in dry seasons and given rest. The previous ayah had just given exactly such a rest, for some days each month. A farmer who only takes from his field ruins it within a few seasons.

The same word appears elsewhere for every human life's work. 'Whoever desires the harvest of the Hereafter, We increase him in his harvest' (42:20). A field is where a life's labour becomes something lasting.

Notice also the small word lakum, 'for you'. A field is given to the farmer as a trust and a provision. Children, continuity, a family that outlives you: all of it grows from this one relationship. That is why it must be tended with care.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.