Essence of the Holy Qur’an — Page 72
Essence of the Holy Qur’ ā n 72 excused from fighting on the side of Muslims on very lame excuses. They broke their plighted word. The Ban u Qurai ah were the first to dishonour their pledge and to leave Muslims in the lurch when the latter were hemmed in on all sides and the very fate of Islam hung in the balance. After the Confederates dispersed, the Holy Prophet marched against them and they received deserved punishment. As a result of the Battle of the Trench and of the subsequent banishment of the Ban u Qurai ah large booty fell into the hands of Muslims. From a persecuted and economically very poor minority they had grown into a rich, powerful and prosperous State. Material wealth brings in its train worldly- mindedness, a desire for ease and comfort and apathy towards service and sacrifice. This is a state of affairs which a Reformer has specially to guard against. Love of ease and comfort generally makes appearance first in the domestic circle, and as the members of the Holy Prophet’s household were to serve as a model in social behaviour, it was in the fitness of things that they should have been required to set an example in self-denial. The Holy Prophet’s wives were asked to make a choice between a life of comfort and ease and his simple and even austere companionship and they lost no time in making their choice. They preferred the Prophet’s company. The wives of the Holy Prophet were particularly enjoined to set an example in piety and righteous conduct, as befitted the wives of the greatest of God’s Prophets and in preserving the dignity and decorum of their exalted position, and by teaching Muslims the precepts and commandments of their religion. The S u rah , then, makes a reference to Zainab’s marriage with Zaid. The failure of this marriage and Zainab’s subsequent marriage with the Holy Prophet served a double purpose. By giving in marriage Zainab, his own cousin and a full-blooded Arab lady, intensely proud of her ancestry and exalted social position, to a freed slave, the Holy Prophet had sought to level to the ground all those invidious class distinctions and divisions from which the Arabian society had suffered, as according to Islam all men were free and equal in the sight of God. Next, the S u rah removes a possible misgiving to which the abolition of the custom of adoption might have given rise, viz. that in the absence of real sons the Holy Prophet will die issueless and his Movement will wither and die out for want of an heir. It says that it was God’s own plan that the Prophet should have no male issue; but this did not mean that he would be issueless since he was the spiritual father of the whole of mankind. As practical proof of this claim he would bring into being a community of righteous and most loyal spiritual sons. The S u rah further says that since the Holy Prophet is the spiritual father of the Faithful, his wives are their spiritual mothers, and therefore marriage with them, after the death of the Holy Prophet, is a grievous sin. The Holy Prophet himself is told that he is not to divorce anyone of his existing wives, nor to add to their number, and his wives are enjoined that, consistently with their dignity as "Mothers of the Faithful," they should observe certain rules regarding dress, etc.