The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 567
PT. 15 BANI ISRĀ'ĪL from They sayi. e. he effaced or blotted out the thing. means, the man spent his money so much that he became poor. means, he washed the cloth. They say ali. e. time took away his money from his hands. means, to be or grow poor; poverty (Aqrab). Commentary: V. 29 enjoins the giving of wealth in charity but not in a way as to do moral injury to the recipient or to involve the giver himself in pecuniary trouble. The verse under comment funds or means condemns the begrudging of adequate for the proper education and upbringing of children and calls it a form of killing. It does not, however, refer to the Arab custom of killing girls, which is dealt with elsewhere and which is nowhere said to be due to the fear of spending money on them. Girls were slain because their birth was looked upon as a source of disgrace and humiliation for their parents (16:59, 60 & 43:18). a CH. 17 for them is as good as killing them and has been so called. Taking the word (killing) in a figurative sense those miserly parents who do not give proper education to their children contribute to the latter's moral and intellectual death. The verse under comment very strongly condemns such "killing" of innocent children who, if given right kind of education and also afforded proper opportunities to rise to their full stature are capable of becoming very useful members of society. It exhorts Muslims not to spare money to equip their children physically and morally for a successful and respectable life. The word (killing) has been used in the verse in order forcibly to draw attention to the various indirect ways in which some parents cause the death of their children. One such form of killing is to neglect to provide proper nourishment for pregnant women or exact heavy tasks from them during their pregnancy or in the period of suckling, which has a very adverse effect on the health of the child. By using this word the Quran emphatically has drawn attention to all those direct or indirect causes that lead to the ruining of the physical or moral health of children. Evidently there hardly lives person so foolish as actually to kill his children in order to save his money. But there is no dearth of persons even among the so-called educated and cultured classes who "kill" their children by not giving The killing of children may also them proper food or clothing. take the form of birth control which, Children of miserly parents fall however, is permissible if, for victim to various kinds of diseases instance, by conception the life of a because they are not given the food pregnant woman is considered, by which is essential for the proper competent medical authority, to be in building up of strong and healthy danger in the event of her giving birth bodies. These children die to a child. The words (khiṭ'an) prematurely from malnutrition. This and (khat'an) differ in their refusal to provide proper nourishment | significance), the former being 1775