Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 638
UNVEILING OF THE ‘UNSEEN' BY THE QURAN - A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE age to which all previous verses refer to from different angles. 81:9-10 وَإِذَا الْمَوْءِ دَةُ سُئِلَتْهُ بِأَيِّ ذَنْبٍ قُتِلَتْ. And when the girl-child buried alive is questioned about, ‘For what offence has she been put to death?"³4. In their ignorance some Arabs felt extremely insulted when a daughter was born to them and out of shame might even bury her alive. Society had no right to interfere in such matters as though the fathers owned their children like property. . That age would be the age of the strict rule of law is the evident message. This message however, is delivered particularly with reference to the rights of women. . Otherwise a simple statement concerning law and order could as well have been made. In the light of this, one simply cannot fail to register this significance. No longer will men be able to trifle with the rights of women, is the powerful import of this verse. Never in any age did the rights of women acquire such importance as in contemporary times. . All the features of the latter days which the verses of this Quranic Surah develop systematically with a progressive sequence, carry the subject forward from one feature to another like the brush of a master painter. The scientific development which is throughout implied is continuously interwoven with the political and social aspects. In verse 8 the bonding together of man is predicted in more than one way. The same subject is taken up again in verse 11 after the mention of social and political developments. The idea is introduced with reference to the 598