An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 23 of 176

An-Nisa 4:23

حُرِّمَتْ عَلَيْكُمْ أُمَّهَـٰتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُكُمْ وَأَخَوَٰتُكُمْ وَعَمَّـٰتُكُمْ وَخَـٰلَـٰتُكُمْ وَبَنَاتُ ٱلْأَخِ وَبَنَاتُ ٱلْأُخْتِ وَأُمَّهَـٰتُكُمُ ٱلَّـٰتِىٓ أَرْضَعْنَكُمْ وَأَخَوَٰتُكُم مِّنَ ٱلرَّضَـٰعَةِ وَأُمَّهَـٰتُ نِسَآئِكُمْ وَرَبَـٰٓئِبُكُمُ ٱلَّـٰتِى فِى حُجُورِكُم مِّن نِّسَآئِكُمُ ٱلَّـٰتِى دَخَلْتُم بِهِنَّ فَإِن لَّمْ تَكُونُوا۟ دَخَلْتُم بِهِنَّ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَحَلَـٰٓئِلُ أَبْنَآئِكُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ مِنْ أَصْلَـٰبِكُمْ وَأَن تَجْمَعُوا۟ بَيْنَ ٱلْأُخْتَيْنِ إِلَّا مَا قَدْ سَلَفَ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا

“Prohibited to you [for marriage] are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your father's sisters, your mother's sisters, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your [milk] mothers who nursed you, your sisters through nursing, your wives' mothers, and your step-daughters under your guardianship [born] of your wives unto whom you have gone in. But if you have not gone in unto them, there is no sin upon you. And [also prohibited are] the wives of your sons who are from your [own] loins, and that you take [in marriage] two sisters simultaneously, except for what has already occurred.[176] Indeed, Allāh is ever Forgiving and Merciful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The closest bonds of birth, milk and marriage are made a sanctuary, so those who raise you and live beside you can love without agenda.

A reflection

A verb that does not name its Speaker

The ayah opens with a verb in the passive: ḥurrimat ʿalaykum, made forbidden to you. It does not say who forbade. One classical commentator explains why: there is no doubt who it could be.

Think about what that sentence did. In one breath it redrew the map of every household that heard it. Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces. The woman who nursed you and the girl who shared her milk. Your wife's mother, her daughter in your care, your son's wife. Some of these unions had happened before Islam, and the ayah's own words, 'except what has already passed', admit it. No council voted on this. No tribe negotiated it. It was said, and homes rearranged themselves around it.

That is a kind of authority we rarely meet. Human law reaches the street, the shop and the office. It struggles at the front door. What happens between relatives behind that door is the last kingdom most people believe they rule alone. The ego says: my house, my desires, my business. The ayah walks through that door without knocking, because the house was never ours. The One who shaped the womb and wrote the lineage has the right to draw the rings inside it.

Then, having drawn them, He closes with two names: ghafūran raḥīman, Forgiving, Merciful. A concise commentary reads the first as forgiveness for what was done before the prohibition. The second, it says, is mercy towards you in this very matter.

Does He need to be called Forgiving? He is the Free of need (35:15). The names are for the listener, the one with a past, who wonders whether the new law is a verdict on everything behind him. Only real authority can draw a line and, in the same breath, decline to drag up what came before it.

Pride wants to set the lines in its own house, and to set them for its own comfort. Humility begins by admitting that the best lines in your house were drawn by Someone else. They were drawn to protect the weakest people in it, and they were drawn with mercy.

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.