before he can ‘touch’ her

Now that we have an idea what zuwr means, let’s move to V3 of Q58, which says ‘And those who declare ziHar from their wives, and then [wish to] go back on what they said – then [there must be] the freeing of a slave before they touch one another…’. So, those who after committing ziHar and basically want to go back to how things were will have to free a slave before they can touch their spouse.

Since with ziHar, the husband has likened his wife’s back to that of his mother, basically saying they are the same, which is euphemism for he can’t be intimate with her anymore amongst other things; for him to be able to go back to how things were, he would have to free a slave, before he can then yatamaasa (touch) her.

Now let’s delve into what yatamaasa means. Its root alphabets are mim and sin, and 8 forms of the word which includes massa, massat, yamassu, lamyamsas, tamassu, yamassan, misas, and yatamaassa; occurred a total of 62 times in the Quran.

Despite the fact that it is translated as ‘touch’, it is more of what can be known by the sense of touch. So, it includes physical touch, but not limited to that touch. For clarity, let’s look at some verses in the Quran on how it is used.

In Q35 V35, it is used to qualify toil and weariness touching someone. In Q15 V48, it is used for fatigue touching one. In Q70 V21, it is used for good touching one. In Q6 V17, it is used for affliction and happiness touching one. In Q15 V54, it is used for old age touching one. In Q26 V156 it was used to qualify harm touching a she-camel, and the list goes on and on.

And what we get from these is the fact that, though physical touch is included in what it means, the sense of being ‘touched’ is also included. You know, one can be touched by someone else’s kindness even if the said kindness is not directed towards one. Happiness or any of the verbs used above doesn’t actually physically touch one, but one feels it, and it is that feeling that equates to touching.

Massa can be contrasted with masah (with ha), which is exclusively physical touch, and a quintessential example of that is in Q5 V6 where Allah was describing how to do ablution and tayammum, and saying we should ‘wipe’; in the case of the former, head and feet, and in the case of the latter, face and hands. So, with masah, one has to physically use their hands. But if we take massa as used in Q26 V156, where it was used to warn the people of thamud not the hurt the miraculous she-camel; the Quran says ‘…not to tamassu (touch) with harm…’, if masah had been used, it would have meant using one’s barehands to hurt the animal, but with massa, whether one uses one’s hand, one’s knife, one’s mind or one’s bullet to touch the she-camel, one can be held guilty of the instruction not to massa the she-camel with harm.

And with this, what we realize is that the touch the husband is not allowed to do is not only a physical one, but any act or omission that will affect the wife in anyway which may include being in close proximity, gesturing in a seductive way, kiss, or any of such acts, will fall under the yatamassa touch. Pay your expiation first, and then you can contact her.

And this goes in line with what the prophet pbuh said to a man who came to him to tell him that he had sex with his wife after having declared ziHar on her before paying the expiation because he saw the adornment she was wearing shining under the moon light to which the prophet pbuh said ‘fala taqrabHa hata tafa’la ma amaraka Llahu a’zzawajalla’; translated as ‘then do not touch her until you do what Allah the Exalted and the Most Honored has ordered you to do’. But we will notice that the word translated to ‘touch’ here is ‘taqrab’, which is gotten from qarib, and I have written extensively on qarib here when I wrote about wa la taqrabu zina, but the gist of it is that qarib means closeness, proximity and the likes.

So the yatamassu touch definitely includes proximity, and what that means will depend on the time one is living in. In today’s age, it can include letters, text messages, phone calls, social media updates or messages and the likes.

And if we go back to Khuwaylah’s incident, we see that she didn’t go and meet her husband until the verses were revealed, and the prophet and her first had donate what he would use to expiate or atone for the ziHar that he pronounced on his wife before she could go back to him.

So, again, to conclude, if he is feeling remorse, and wants to go back to how things were before equating her back to that of his mother which basically means making her forbidden for himself, before he is allowed to yatamassu touch her, he must free a slave.

So as not to make this too long of a read, I will discuss the freeing of a slave in the next piece inshaAllah. Amin.