An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 127 of 176

An-Nisa 4:127

وَيَسْتَفْتُونَكَ فِى ٱلنِّسَآءِ ۖ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ يُفْتِيكُمْ فِيهِنَّ وَمَا يُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْكُمْ فِى ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ فِى يَتَـٰمَى ٱلنِّسَآءِ ٱلَّـٰتِى لَا تُؤْتُونَهُنَّ مَا كُتِبَ لَهُنَّ وَتَرْغَبُونَ أَن تَنكِحُوهُنَّ وَٱلْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ ٱلْوِلْدَٰنِ وَأَن تَقُومُوا۟ لِلْيَتَـٰمَىٰ بِٱلْقِسْطِ ۚ وَمَا تَفْعَلُوا۟ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ بِهِۦ عَلِيمًا

“And they request from you, [O Muḥammad], a [legal] ruling concerning women. Say, "Allāh gives you a ruling about them and [about] what has been recited to you in the Book concerning the orphan girls to whom you do not give what is decreed for them[219] - and [yet] you desire to marry them - and concerning the oppressed among children and that you maintain for orphans [their rights] in justice." And whatever you do of good - indeed, Allāh is ever Knowing of it.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah Himself takes up the case of the girl nobody argues for, and names the guardian who profits whether he wants her or not.

A reflection

Her case was taken up from above

People asked the Prophet ﷺ about women. The reply did not begin with his opinion. It began: Allah gives you the ruling about them.

Then comes a phrase with unusual weight: and what is recited to you in the Book. Most read it as the earlier ayat of this surah, still speaking. Two rhetorical commentaries add a second reading. The Book may be the record kept with Allah. Then the phrase lifts the orphan girl's rights to the highest register there is. Justice to orphans, they explain, is among the great matters, raised in rank with Allah. Whoever neglects it is a wrongdoer, treating lightly what Allah has made great.

The word for orphan, yatīm, first pictured a pearl alone in its shell, cut off from what fed it. Notice who the orphans are here. Not small children in an institution. Young women, often with property, living in a relative's house. Their weakness is not poverty. It is that nobody stands up for them.

Picture such a girl. Her uncle decides when the family discusses her future. In his mind she is a small matter, one line in the household accounts.

This is where the ego must shrink. Each of us has someone we treat as a small matter. The quiet relative. The cleaner whose name we never learned. The junior who cannot complain. We are careful with people who can repay us and casual with those who cannot.

The ayah answers that casualness with majesty. The One who owns everything in the heavens and the earth (4:126) takes up her case Himself.

Does Allah need to announce that He answers, or that He knows? He needs nothing; it is people who are poor towards Him, and He is the Rich, the Praised (35:15). The announcement is for the guardian, who forgets who is watching. And it is for the girl, who might think nobody is.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.