The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2)

The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 300

CH. 4 AN-NISA' PT. 6 less than that allotted to those of the left behind no spiritual successor to latter class. succeed him in his prophetic office, which was, after his death, inherited by the Ishmaelites. In this case the words, If a man dies, leaving no child, may also signify that Jesus was a Kalalah, not in the sense that spiritually speaking he had neither parents nor child, but in the restricted sense that he had no child. See 4:13 under Important Words where Ibn Abbās defines a Kalālah as simply one who leaves no child. Thus Jesus was spiritually a Kalālah in the sense that he left behind no spiritual successor. Compare also the prophecy, "I will raise them a prophet from among their brethren" (Deut. This part of the law of inheritance has been purposely treated separately from the main portion of the law dealt with in 4:12, 13 in the beginning of the Surah. The object in doing so is not far to seek. After dealing at some length with the charges levelled against Jesus by the Jews and clearing his position, the Quran reverts to the subject of Kalālah at the end of the Surah, thus seeking (beside completing the law relating to Kalalah) to draw, by a most fitting parable, our attention to the spiritual heirlessness of Jesus who, in a sense, was also a Kalālah. He was born without the agency of a father, and he | 18:18). 740