Q58 V1 on the prestigious place of women in Islam.

Q58 V1 starts by stating that Allah has heard the speech or words of the one that argued (tujadiluka) with you concerning her husband and directs her complaints to Allah, and so continues the verse.

The word we will be looking at in this piece is jadil; we will be looking at what it means, and why Allah decided to not only tolerate jadil when it happened with the prophet, but went ahead to levy punishment on husbands or spouses that do such acts as the one that brought the woman to disputing with the prophet.

Tujadiluka, the ta before it is more or less a preposition, and it is for emphasis. As in when one adds ta to Allah when one says wa Llahi! ta Llahi! thuma bi Llahi! Saying wa Llahi is enough to swear by Allah, but perhaps the swearer feels that the person isn’t moved then he adda ta to Allah’s name to show that he is serious. I often say one should just go ahead and believe anyone that decides to add ta Llahi to their swear even before they add ‘thuma bi Llahi’ out of reverence to Allah even if one thinks they aren’t saying the truth. That would be between the person and Allah that they’ve brought into the conviction twice.

Anyway, how does this tally with jadil? It was added to jadil so that a picture of how fierce the argument between this woman and the prophet pbuh must have been. So that we know the weight of the said argument between the woman and the prophet pbuh, and in the sight of Allah.

As for the word jadil, its root alphabets are jim, dal and lam, and 3 forms of the word occurred a total of 29 times in the Quran; jadala, jadal and jidal. And it means to braid, to twist, to twist tightly, and so a rope is called jadil. And it is from this imagery that it has come to mean to be well built, to knock down, to dispute, to argue in a contentious manner, to debate.

It is important to note this meaning because firstly, in Q49 V2, Allah said to the Mumin not to raise their voices above that of the Prophet or be loud with him in speech or else all of their good deeds could be wiped out without them perceiving it. And in V1 of the same Surah Allah says not to put ourselves or our desires before that of the prophet pbuh.

And here, we have a woman arguing with the prophet pbuh, and no, she wasn’t reprimanded in the slightest, her debate was made eternal. The debate was one that Allah even referred to as tahawur, which was translated to dialogue. The root alphabets of hawar are ha, wa and ra, and 5 forms of the word occurred 13 times in the Quran. Though the word is translated to ‘dialogue’, it classically means a circle, to encircle, to return to, the roundness of anything; and any conversation, debate, dialogue, that keeps going round and round in circles without the other budging is called hawar.

And so we are made to realize the nature of the said dialogue, that it was one that both parties weren’t letting go of their stands. Going back to Jadil now, I’m reminded of another place the word jadil was used.

In Q11 V74, Allah said Ibrahim argued (jadil) with the angels on behalf of the people of Lut, and he will not back off until the angels then told him that this was Allah’s command. Though his request in the argument was not granted, Allah praised him in V75 that followed.

Secondly, this jadil that she did is important because almost every other mention of jadil in the Quran that involves a prophet and the people they’ve been sent to; those people were eventually destroyed. That is true of the people of Noah in Q11 V32, and they were eventually drowned. And in Q40 V5, Allah says ‘the people of Noah and other groups after them denied Our signs before these people, and every nation strove to seize their messenger, and disputed (jadal) by means of false arguments that they might rebut the truth thereby. Then I seized them, and how terrible was my retribution!’

So it seems that what this woman did was pretty brave. I’m also reminded of that one time that Umar ra when he was the leader of the Muslims said when he saw this woman that argued with the prophet pbuh. She advised him on and on until one of his companions asked why he would leave so and so to come to her, to which Umar answered, “Woe to you! Do you not know who this is?” and he said, “This is a woman whose complaint Allah listened to from above the seven heavens: this is Khawla bint Tha’labah. By Allah, if she did not leave me until night fell, I would not tell her to leave until she had got what she came for, unless the time for prayer came, in which case I would pray, and then come back to her until she had got what she came for.”

I’m writing all these not just to praise the woman, but to try to paint a picture of how important Allah deemed the matter she brought forth that Allah would rather answer her complaints than ignore or reprimand her.

Now that we are here, I will try to narrate the incident that brought about the situation in this surah. This was an incident that happened between Khuwaylah bint Tha’labah and her husband ‘Aws bin Somit. ‘Aws, the husband came in one day and argued with her about something, and out of anger said, ‘you are like my mother’s back to me’.

He then left the house, sat with some of his people, and then came back in and wanted to have sexual intercourse with her. To which she refused and said ‘No, by the One in Whose Hand is the soul of Khuwaylah! You will not have your way with me after you said what you said, until Allah and His messenger issue judgment about our case’.

He wanted to have his way regardless of what she said, and so she pushed him away from her self, went to one of the neighbors’ and borrowed a garment from her and went to the Messenger pbuh. And she told him of what happened to which the prophet said that her husband was an old man, and so she should have taqwa of Allah regarding him. She and the prophet would go back and forth, and when she saw that the prophet won’t yield, and won’t pronounce any punishment on ‘Aws, she faced the skies and made her complaints to Allah.

And before she left, she said she saw the prophet feel the heaviness and hardship he usually feels when revelation was being revealed to him, and then said to her, ‘O Khuwaylah! Allah has revealed something about you and your spouse’. And then he recited the verses of suratul mujadilah.

‘Aws was an old man at this point, and Khuwaylah was relatively old too. In the narration of A’ishah ra about the incident, she said Khuwaylah said ‘O Allah’s messenger! He spent my wealth, exhausted my youth and my womb bore abundantly for him. When I became old, unable to bear children, he pronounced the zihar on me! O Allah! I complain to you.’ Soon after, revelation came down.

You see, in the time before Islam, to say to one’s spouse that they are like one’s mother’s back to one is a means of divorcing the said spouse. This, coupled with the content of the argument that the wife and husband had was what convinced Khuwaylah that there is no way that something won’t be said of this by Allah and the Messenger. I’m reminded of the latin maxim ubi jus ibi remedium, which means whenever there is a wrong, there must be a remedy.

Anyway, the saying that one’s spouse is like one’s mother’s back is what is now called Zihar, I won’t be going into Zihar here, but should be doing that in the next works that will come after this. Here, I was to focus on the prestige that Allah has placed on this woman, and by extension all women, by the revelation of this surah.

This surah, in the entire Quran happens to be the only surah that Allah’s name is mentioned in each verse. Allah could have chosen any other surah to bestow this honor, but it is in showing the esteem that Gẹ puts the women folk that Gẹ decides to bestow this honor in a surah dedicated to the woman that argued.

This name-and-woman theme reminds me of an Hadith quds by Allah where Gẹ said, ‘I am God, Allah, and I am the Merciful. I created the womb (rahm), and I have [given] it a name derived from My own name.’ So, again, we see how Allah intertwines Gẹs name and the Woman by way of her womb. The same sentiment was expressed in Q4 V1, and in Q47 V22; in the latter, cutting off with the womb was even likened to disbelief.

The Prophet pbuh said, “The word ‘Ar-Rahm (womb) derives its name from Ar-Rahman (i.e., one of the names of Allah) and Allah said: ‘I will keep good relation with the one who will keep good relation with you, and sever the relation with him who will sever the relation with you’.

To maintain good relations with one’s spouse is definitely a plus, and to sever such relations can be a devastating one as we will soon see when we start exploring zihar and the punishments that comes with it. To sever relations to what issues forth from the womb can only start by one’s demeanor towards the one that carries the womb in the first place, hence why one must treat women with such honor, and why Allah honors them. In Surahs like Nisaa, Maryam, Mumtahanah, Mujadilah and the likes, where surahs were named after women, they continue to be honored in the Islamic traditions.

I have written about how Q33 V59 basically commands Muslim men to protect women’s rights. And with the emphasis Allah is placing on women here, and in other verses and even surahs in the Quran, it is obvious that Allah wishes to entrench this value of respect to women.

Instead what we find is that people get sad when they are given news of a female child, a slight that Allah condemned when Gẹ said in Q16 V58 and V59 that ‘And when one of them is informed of [the birth of] a female, his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief. He hides himself from the people because of the ill of which he has been informed. Should he keep it in humiliation or bury it in the ground?  Unquestionably, evil is what they decide.’

And Allah in Q42 V49 and V50 would mention the female child first in mentioning the order Gẹ gives children; that in a way states the importance of the female child, and the prestige they must occupy in our hearts where Gẹ said ‘To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth; He creates what He wills. He gives to whom He wills female [children], and He gives to whom He wills males. Or He makes them [both] males and females, and He renders whom He wills barren. Indeed, He is Knowing and Competent.’

But what shayton does is to make sure that we dislike what Allah likes, and by so doing, he seeks ways to belittle, destroy and decimate what Allah expects us to treasure. We see that in the way the Arabs used to bury their daughters before Islam, a practice still prevalent in some parts of Asia especially in India today. It is present in the way the world now tries to make sure women are paid less for doing the same work, in the way they make sure they are uneducated, in the way they are made properties in their own homes, in the way they are basically enslaved, and made to suffer for no other reason other than the fact that they’ve come to this world as females.

This disrespect for women permeates all cultures of the world. It is alive in the way the f word is accompanied with mother. It is alive in the genre of comedy dubbed ‘mama jokes’. Even in the Yoruba culture that I am familiar with, the mere mention of mother (Iya) is termed an abusive word. If one were to say to someone Iya ẹ (your mother), that’s enough for the victim to well up if she or he can’t fight the abuser, or start a fight if they can. Iyalaya ẹ or just the opening of one’s palm and facing it to someone else is another way of abusing the victim’s mother.

All of these acts that belittle women by way of discrimination, stereotyping and the likes, are acts that shouldn’t become of a Muslim.

The prophet pbuh is reported to have said ‘whoever has three daughters and he accommodates them, show mercy toward them, and supports them, Paradise is definitely guaranteed for him’, someone then asked ‘what if they are two daughters only’, and he said the reward applies to one with two daughters too. And some of those present while this was happening said had someone asked if one had a daughter too, he would have told them that the reward would apply to them too.

So, here, with mujadila, we realize that the reason she was able to get away with what she did was not only because of how heinous the act committed on her was, but was perhaps mainly because of the honor and prestige Allah has placed on women, so that Gẹ even names a part of her after Gẹmself. And it is in being a believer that one honors what Allah has honored, and dislike what Allah has disliked.

It is only important that the vessel that births the continuation of the tradition should not only be protected, but must be respected by all means.

It is with this introduction that we go into Zihar proper in the next piece inshaAllah.