An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 22 of 176

An-Nisa 4:22

وَلَا تَنكِحُوا۟ مَا نَكَحَ ءَابَآؤُكُم مِّنَ ٱلنِّسَآءِ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ سَلَفَ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ فَـٰحِشَةً وَمَقْتًا وَسَآءَ سَبِيلًا

“And do not marry those [women] whom your fathers married, except what has already occurred.[175] Indeed, it was an immorality and hateful [to Allāh] and was evil as a way.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A son may not marry his father's wife; the ayah draws that line plainly, forgives what came before it, and guards the bond between generations.

A reflection

A line most consciences already knew

In a family group chat, someone forwards an article. Religious family rules, it claims, are just old tribal taboos dressed up as revelation. A cousin replies with a shrug.

This ayah states one such rule plainly. 'Do not marry women whom your fathers married.' It does not dwell on the act, and neither should we. What is worth pondering is how the ayah frames it.

A Companion is reported to have said that the people before Islam already held as forbidden what Allah later forbade, with two exceptions. One was a father's wife; the other was marrying two sisters together. In other words, most of this boundary already lived in their consciences. The custom was an outlier, not the norm.

One classical commentary adds a striking detail. Even then, people of decency among the Arabs loathed it. They called it nikāḥ al-maqt, the marriage of loathing. The ayah takes that very word, maqt, and gives it back to them. The lexicons define it as the fiercest hatred, aimed at someone for a foul thing they did.

So the commentary sums up: it is foul in Allah's religion and loathed in human decency. Nothing exceeds an act that combines both kinds of ugliness.

The article in the group chat misses this. Revelation here does not invent a strange restriction. It confirms what the best of human conscience already sensed, and seals it.

Where does your own conscience already know a line that you have been treating as negotiable?

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.