Tafsir of An-Nisa' 4:4

(And give the women), meaning: give those women whom you have been commanded to marry. (Their dowries (Sadaqātihinna)); this is the plural of sadaqah, with a fatḥah on the ṣād and a ḍammah on the dāl, and it is synonymous with ṣadāq, meaning the bridal gift (mahr). It has also been recited as ṣadaqātihinna, with a fatḥah on the ṣād and a sukūn on the dāl, the original of which was with a ḍammah on the dāl, then lightened by the sukūn. Another reading is ṣuduqātihinna, with a ḍammah on the ṣād and a sukūn on the dāl, the plural of ṣuduqah on the scale of ghurfah. It has also been recited as ṣadaqatahunna (singular), with a ḍammah on the ṣād and the dāl, based on the singular, the original of which was ṣadaqah (a ḍammah on the ṣād and a sukūn on the dāl), then the dāl was given a ḍammah to follow the ḍammah of the first letter, just as one says ẓulmah and ẓulmah (darkness).

(A free gift (niḥlah)), meaning: an obligatory gift. This was stated by Ibn Abbas, Ibn Zayd, Ibn Jurayj, and Qatadah. Its accusative case (tanṣīb) is as a state (ḥāl) from the dowries; that is, give them their dowries while they are an obligation from Allah, the Exalted, for them.

Al-Zajjaj and Ibn Khalawayh said: [It means] as a matter of religious duty; thus its accusative case is as a maf‘ūl lahu (causative object), meaning: give it to them out of piety and religious law. Al-Kalbi said: [It is] a gift and a bestowal from Allah, and a grace from Him, the Exalted, upon them; thus its accusative case is also as a state from the dowries. It is also said: [It is] a gift from the husbands to them, so its accusative case is as an infinitive (maṣdar) or as a state from the pronoun in "give" (ātu), or from "women," or from "their dowries."

An objection is raised that the ḥāl (state) is a constraint for the governor (‘āmil), so it would necessitate here that the act of giving be a constraint for the act of giving itself, and a thing cannot be a constraint for itself. The response is that the niḥlah is not absolute giving, but rather a specific type of it—which is giving with a willing heart. Thus, the meaning is: "Give them their dowries while being willing of heart in giving," or "a mutual gift with a willing heart." Upon this, the infinitive clarifies the type.

If you say: The concept of niḥlah also encompasses the absence of compensation, so how can the dowry be without compensation when it is in exchange for the private parts and the enjoyment of them? The answer is: Since the wife has in intercourse that which the husband has, or even more—and she exceeds him by the obligation of maintenance and clothing—the dowry is "free" as a compensation for enjoyment with even greater enjoyment. It is said: The dowry in the laws of those before us was for the guardians, by evidence of His saying: "I wish to marry you one of my two daughters," etc. Then it was abrogated, so it became a gift specifically for the women, and thus it was called niḥlah. Many have supported Al-Kalbi's view, stating that the word niḥlah denotes a gift without compensation, as a group including Al-Rummani held. They include in this niḥlah for religion, because it is like the niḥlah (gift) which is a bestowal from Allah, and the naḥl (bees) for the hive because of the honey given, and nāḥil (emaciated) for the thin person because he gives up his flesh state after state as if giving it without compensation, and manḥūl (plagiarized) poetry, because the poet "gifts" what is not his.

In this case, whoever interprets niḥlah as an "obligation" looks at the fact that this gift is an obligation, and the address—as is the obvious implication—is to the husbands. This is the view of Ibn Abbas and a group, and it was chosen by Al-Tabari, Al-Jubba'i, and others. It is said: A man would marry without a dowry, saying: "I will inherit from you and you will inherit from me," and she would say: "Yes." Then they were ordered to hasten the giving of dowries. It is also said: The address is to the guardians of the women, for Ibn Humayd and Ibn Abi Hatim narrated from Abu Salih, who said: A man, if he married an orphan, would take her dowry instead of her, so Allah prohibited them from that, and "And give the women..." was revealed. Al-Jarud narrated this from the Imamiyyah scholars, from Al-Baqir (may Allah be pleased with him). This is the custom of many Arabs today, and it is forbidden, like husbands taking anything from the dowries of women without their consent.

(But if they offer you...), the pronoun refers to the dowries; its masculinization is because it is treated in the same manner as the word dhālikum (that), as it is often used to point to the plural, as in His saying: "Say: Shall I inform you of better than that?" after mentioning various desires. It has been narrated from Abu Ubaydah that he said: I said to Ru'bah regarding his statement: "In it are lines of black and white, as if on the skin [is] the dappling of vitiligo,"—if you meant the lines, say ka'annahā (feminine), and if you meant the black and white, say ka'annahumā (dual). He replied: "I meant 'like that' (ka'anna dhālika), woe to you!" Or the pronoun refers to the ṣadāq (dowry) that occupies the place of ṣadaqātihinna, as if it were said: "Give the women their ṣadāq." Carrying [a word] over to the meaning is common; from this is His saying: "So I may give charity and be," where it is conjoined to what the mentioned [word] indicated and occupied its place; or it refers to the dowry that is contained within the plural, for the meaning is: give each of the women a dowry.

It is said the pronoun returns to the "giving" (īta'), but this is objected to by saying it only holds if one intends by it the "given" (mu'tā), and the return of a pronoun to a concept understood from an infinitive, then interpreting that infinitive as a noun, is not free from being far-fetched.

The lām (in lakum) is connected to the verb, and similarly ‘an (in ‘an shay'in) is connected to it by implying the meaning of "withdrawing and distancing." Otherwise, its origin is to be transitive to the like of that with the bā' (e.g., tībā bi-shay'in). Min (in minhu) is connected to a hidden element that acts as an adjective for a thing—i.e., "[something] existing of the dowry." In this lies an incentive for them to minimize what is gifted, until it was narrated from Al-Layth that it is not permissible for them to donate except a little. There is no difference between what is received and what is in the debt-liability (dhimmah), except that the first is a gift and the second is a release of debt (ibrā'). Therefore, people transact with compensation for it to avoid the disagreement.

(Na the soul (nafsan)) is a specifier (tamyīz) to clarify the genus; hence it is singularized. The explanation of this—according to what some researchers have mentioned—is that if the specifier is identical in meaning to the specified, correspondence is mandatory, such as karuma al-zaydūna rijālan (The Zayds were noble as men), like the predicate, the attribute, and the ḥāl. If it is singular and not multiple, singularizing it is mandatory, like karuma banū fulānin aban (The children of so-and-so were noble as a father), since the intent is that their origin is one and is characterized by nobility. If it is multiple and creates confusion, it must be changed to the apparent form, like karuma al-zaydūna ābā'an (The Zayds were noble as fathers), if the intent is that each of them has a noble father, for if it were singularized, it would be imagined that they are from one father, while the goal is the opposite. If it does not create confusion, both are permissible. The justification for singularization is the absence of confusion, as in this case, because it is not imagined that they [the women] have one soul. The preferred view is that it is the original, due to its lightness and its correspondence to the pronoun in minhu, which is a generic noun, and the goal here is to clarify the genus. The singular indicates it, like saying: "Twenty dirhams." The meaning is: "If they gift you something of the dowry, with their souls withdrawing from it, being willing, not corrupted by what forces them to give from the roughness of your character and the evil of your treatment." The reason for preferring what is in the Noble Order, rather than "If they gift you something of it with a willing soul," is to signal that the foundation of the matter is the willingness of the soul and its total withdrawal from the gifted [amount], as it was made a starting point and a pillar of the speech, not a mere secondary detail as in the hypothetical construction.

(Eat it), meaning: consume that thing which their souls were willing to [forgo] for you, and dispose of it as owners. The mention of eating is specified because it is the greatest of financial dispositions.

(With relish (hani'an) and ease (mari'an)) are two adjectives derived from hana'a the food, it becomes hana'ah, and mara'a it becomes mara'ah, when it does not weigh heavily on the stomach and descends pleasantly. In Al-Siḥāḥ, narrating from Al-Akhfash: It is said hana'a and hani'a, and mara'a and mari'a, just as it is said faqaha and faqih (with a fatḥah and ḍammah on the qāf). It is also said: "The food pleased me (han'ani)"—it has no equivalent in the hamzah-ending verbs. You say: hani'tu the food, meaning I found it pleasant. Similarly: "The food agreed with me (mara'ani)". Some said amra'ani. Al-Farra' said: It is said hana'ani and mara'ani without an alif. If they isolate them from hana'ani, they say amra'ani. It is said the hani' is that which the eater finds delicious, and the mari' is that whose outcome is praised. It is also said: That which flows easily in its path, which is the mari' (the esophagus), the head of the stomach and the rumen attached to the throat; it was named so for the passage of food through it, i.e., its flowing. Their accusative case—as Al-Zamakhshari said—is because they are adjectives for the infinitive, meaning: "an eating that is hani'an and mari'an." And describing the infinitive with them, as Al-Sa'd said, is based on figurative attribution, since the hani' in reality is the eaten [food]. Or, they are two states (ḥāl) from the object pronoun: "Eat it while it is hani'an and mari'an." Sometimes there is a pause on kulūhu and one begins with hani'an mari'an as a supplication, or on the basis that they are two adjectives placed in the position of two infinitives, as if it were said: "Let it be pleasant and agreeable." This was objected to—given that supplication does not come from Allah, the Exalted—until they interpreted it as a distortion of the grammarians' words and a contradiction to them, for they make the accusative of hani'an a ḥāl (state), and mari'an either a ḥāl or an adjective. What indicates the corruption of what Al-Zamakhshari interpreted and the correctness of the grammarians' view is the nominative case of the apparent nouns after hani'an mari'an. If they were in the accusative as infinitives meant for supplication, that would not be permissible for them, just as it is not permissible to say "May Allah give you suqyan (drink) and ra'yan (pasture)" by making them nominative—even if that is permissible for a verb. The evidence for the permissibility of elevating apparent nouns after them is the saying of Kathir: "Hani'an mari'an is not a latent disease... against what they made lawful of our honor," where mā is in the nominative case by what preceded it from hani'an or mari'an by way of "acting" (i‘māl). Acting in this issue is permissible even if there is no conjunctive link between them, because mari'an is usually not used except as a follower to hani'an, so they become as if they are linked. For that reason, it was countered by what Sibawayh said: hani'an mari'an are two adjectives whose accusative case is the accusative of the infinitives used for supplication via a verb that is not used in appearance, and is abbreviated because the speech indicates it. In this is that it is not a decisive text for what Al-Zamakhshari went toward, because of the possibility that he meant they are two adjectives in the accusative as a state, and the governor of them is a hidden verb that the speech indicates, like the infinitives used for supplication in that they are acted upon by a hidden verb. This is supported by the fact that he said after that: "As if they said: Let that be established pleasantly," for this is among what is said upon the estimation of them being placed in the position of the infinitive. From here, Al-Safaqsi said: The view of Sibawayh and the group is that they are two states in the accusative, by an estimated verb that is mandatory to hide because they stand in its place. This was objected to regarding what was mentioned earlier about the possibility of making them a state from the object pronoun in kulūhu, since upon that [interpretation], they would be from another sentence and have no link to "eat" in terms of syntax.

It was also objected to regarding the proof from the [poetic] verse on elevating the apparent noun by them, [saying] that it is not complete, because of the possibility that mā is in the nominative as a subject (ibtida') and li-'izzatin is its predicate, or it is in the nominative by an estimated verb. Whatever the case may be, His, the Exalted, saying "that" is an expression of the lawfulness, the exaggeration in permissibility, and the removal of culpability. In the book of Al-'Ayyashi, from the Imamiyyah scholars, elevated to Ali (may Allah honor his countenance), it is that a man came to him and said: "O Commander of the Faithful, there is a pain in my belly." He said: "Do you have a wife?" He said: "Yes." He said: "Ask her to gift you something, being willing of heart, from her own wealth, then buy honey with it, then pour some rainwater upon it, then drink it; for I heard Allah, the Exalted, saying in His Book: 'And We sent down from the sky blessed water,' and He, the Exalted, said: 'And [We produce] from their bellies a drink of varying colors in which there is healing for the people,' and He, the Exalted, said: 'But if they offer you anything of it willingly, then take it as satisfaction and ease.' So if blessing, healing, pleasantness, and ease meet, you will be healed, if Allah wills." The man did that and was healed. Abd ibn Humayd and others among our scholars narrated from Ali (may Allah honor his countenance) something close to this with the wording: "If one of you is afflicted, let him ask his wife for three dirhams or something like it, and buy honey with it, and take rainwater, and combine pleasantness, ease, healing, and blessing."

Ibn Jarir narrated from Hadrami that people used to consider it a sin for one of them to return to anything of what he had given to his wife, so this verse was revealed. In it is evidence of the narrowness of the path in that and the necessity of precaution, since the condition was built upon the willingness of the soul, and that is rarely realized. For this reason, Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) wrote to his judges that women are given [dowries] out of desire and out of awe, so whichever woman gave [it back] then wished to return, that is for her. Al-Sha'bi recounted that a man came with his wife to Shurayh regarding a gift she had given him, and she was asking to take it back. Shurayh said: "Return it to her." The man said: "Has Allah not said: 'But if they offer you...'?" He replied: "If her soul were truly willing to [forgo] it, she would not have returned for it." From him also: "I release her from what she gifted, but I do not release him, because they are deceived." What the Hanafis hold is that if a wife gifts something to the husband, she has no right to retract it. Indeed, Ibn Hubayrah mentioned the consensus of the four Imams that neither of the spouses has the right to retract what they gifted to the other.