Essence of the Holy Qur’an — Page 13
13 Chapter 4 An-Nis a ’ (Revealed after Hijrah) Date of Revelation and Context This S u rah is appropriately entitled An-Nis a ’, (The Women) because it deals chiefly with the rights and responsibilities of women and also with their status and position in society. It was revealed at Medina between the third and fifth year of the Hijrah after the Battle of U h ud and it mainly deals with the subject of widows and orphans who were left behind in large numbers after that battle. Muslims and European scholars are all agreed on this point. Noldeke, the great German Orientalist, however, is inclined to place some of its verses among the Meccan revelations, because, according to him in those verses "the Jews are referred to in a friendly spirit", as they had not yet come into conflict with Muslims. Wherry thinks that the words "O people" in verse 134 show that at least this verse was revealed at Mecca because this form of address has been exclusively used in the Meccan S u rahs. But to say that because a certain verse uses the expression "O people" it must, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, belong to the Meccan period is a mere assertion. The fact is that because at Mecca the number of the believers was very small and they had not yet been welded into a distinct and separate community and very few commandments of the Shar i ‘ah had been revealed, the Meccans—believers and disbelievers— were all addressed together by the words "O people. " But as after the Emigration of the Holy Prophet to Medina the commandments of the Shar i ‘ah came thick and fast and an organised community of believers, quite distinct and separate from the disbelievers, had come into existence, they were addressed as "O ye who believe". But where the address is general, applying both to believers and non-believers, the expression "O people" has been used. The connection of the S u rah with the previous Chapter consists in the fact that in the former S u rah one of the principal subjects dealt with was the Battle of U h ud while this S u rah deals with the various problems to which that battle gave rise. The S u rah also sheds a flood of light on the evil designs and machinations of the Jews and the Hypocrites of Medina who, after the Battle of U h ud, seeing that Islam was gaining great power in the land, mustered all their resources to make a last effort to destroy it root and branch. In a way also the S u rah constitutes an extension of the subject matter of the preceding S u rah in that it demolishes the basic Christian doctrine of Atonement, and establishes that Jesus did not die on the Cross. Summary of Subject-Matter As in A l-e-‘Imr a n, the Christian basic doctrines constitute one of the main