al-Aḥzāb 33:49

Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū idhā nakaḥtumu'l-muʾmināti thumma ṭallaqtumūhunna min qabli an tamassūhunna fa-mā lakum ʿalayhinna min ʿiddatin taʿtaddūnahā, fa-mattiʿūhunna wa sarriḥūhunna sarāḥan jamīlā

"O you who believe! If you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them, you have upon them no waiting period to count. So give them a provision and release them in a fair release."

The verse states a ruling and closes the ruling with a command.

And the closing command is word for word the same as in the twenty-eighth verse: sarāḥan jamīlā.

The same construction, once an offer and once a command. And there are twenty-one verses between them.

This is a method of the sūra and I record it: a measure applied in a particular case is afterwards repeated as a general command. The sūra opens to everyone the measure established in the Prophet's house.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the exact repetition of the construction.

To count. ʿAdad — a number; ʿidda — a counted period.

And in the root of the word there is an act of counting — indeed the verse adds the verb as well: taʿtaddūnahā — "which you would count". Two words from the same root.

What the institution of the ʿidda is, and how long it lasts in which cases, is the business of jurisprudence and is not taken up in this commentary. The subject was touched on at al-Ṭalāq; I leave it there.

What emerges from the wording of the verse is this: in a particular case (a marriage contracted and ended before it has actually begun) there is no waiting period.

And the ground of the ruling is visible in the logic of the institution: one of the functions of the ʿidda is that lineage should not be confused; where that possibility does not exist, no period is needed either. This is an observation, not a legal ruling.

The root م-ت-ع for the third time in this sūra (16, 28, 49).

And the structure of the ruling is worth recording: the verse first removes an obligation (there is no ʿidda), then lays down an obligation (give a provision and release them in a fair release).

That is, in bringing an easing the verse does not dump the cost of the easing on the other side. The period is lifted, but the provision and the manner remain.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the order of the verse's two clauses.

The measure of the verse is that short relationships too have an ending.

However short a bond may be, its ending has a form. And the verse does not count the shortness of the period as a ground: it does not say "it had not begun anyway".

On the contrary, it asks for two things: a provision and a form. That is, the duration of a relationship and the responsibility in its ending are not the same thing.