The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 202
CH. 4 AN-NISA' PT. 5 قف وَاللهُ يُرِيدُ انْ يَّتُوْبَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَيُرِيدُ And Allah wishes to turn to. 28 الَّذِيْنَ يَتَّبِعُونَ الشَّهَوتِ أَنْ تَمِيلُوا you in mercy, but those who follow their low desires wish that you should stray far away. 506 "9:104; 33:74; 42:26. state or conduct; a sin or crime, or an act of disobedience deserving punishment; a wrong action (intentional or unintentional); fornication or adultery (Lane & Aqrab). See also 3:119, 2:221. Commentary: As God attaches great value to the faith of a Muslim, He does not like it to become impaired by his marrying disbelieving women. Hence the condition that even the bondwoman a Muslim may marry should be a believer. The words, you are all one from another, are meant to raise believing bondwomen in the estimation of Muslims, who are hereby required not to despise them or treat them with contempt on account of their so- called lower status. The words, half the punishment, mean 50 stripes, the punishment for (unmarried) free women being 100 stripes. See also 24:3. The word half shows that the verse refers to a punishment which can be halved, and not to stoning to death, which was inflicted on married free women. The punishment definitely prescribed in the Quran (24:3) for a fornicator and a fornicatress is only a hundred stripes, but as the Holy Prophet 642 مَيْلًا عَظِيمًا differentiated between married and unmarried persons, inflicting on the former the punishment of stoning to death, the aforesaid verse has been taken as only applying to unmarried persons. The expression, this is for him among you who fears lest he should commit sin, shows that Muslims are enjoined to avoid, as far as possible, contracting conjugal relations with bond women taken prisoner from belligerent disbelievers. This is to be done only if, on the one hand, one is not able to marry a free woman and, on the other, by remaining unmarried, one fears to fall into sin. The Muslim Empire of Baghdad fell to pieces because the khalifahs took to contracting conjugal relations with bondwomen. The incompetent princes born of them ruined the State. In most cases, marital relations with bondwomen are calculated to have a demoralizing effect on both husbands and children. 506. Commentary: In the matter of bondwomen, the Quran wants Muslims to exercise self-control, without which it is feared they may deviate from the path of moral rectitude.