ٱلنَّبِىُّ أَوْلَىٰ بِٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَأَزْوَٰجُهُۥٓ أُمَّهَٰتُهُمْ وَأُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْأَرْحَامِ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلَىٰ بِبَعْضٍ فِى كِتَٰبِ ٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَٱلْمُهَٰجِرِينَ إِلَّآ أَن تَفْعَلُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰٓ أَوْلِيَآئِكُم مَّعْرُوفًا كَانَ ذَٰلِكَ فِى ٱلْكِتَٰبِ مَسْطُورًا
Al-nabiyyu awlā bi'l-muʾminīna min anfusihim wa azwājuhu ummahātuhum, wa ulu'l-arḥāmi baʿḍuhum awlā bi-baʿḍin fī kitābi'llāhi mina'l-muʾminīna wa'l-muhājirīna illā an tafʿalū ilā awliyāʾikum maʿrūfā, kāna dhālika fi'l-kitābi masṭūrā
"The Prophet is nearer to the believers than their own selves (has more right over them). And his wives are their mothers. And blood relations are, in the Book of God, nearer to one another than the believers and the emigrants — except that you do a kindness to your friends. This is written in the Book."
This verse is the direct continuation of verses 4-5, and seeing this is necessary in order to understand it.
The fourth and fifth verses removed two bonds: the false motherhood set up by ẓihār, the false sonship set up by tabannī. The sixth verse establishes two bonds: the precedence of the Prophet and the maternal standing of his wives. And then it puts real kinship in its place.
That is, the sūra takes the bonds apart and lays them out again. And the order is significant: first what is false is removed, then the place of what is real is fixed.
Root: و-ل-ي. The concrete sense of the root is nearness, adjacency. Walī — the one who is near; walāya — the authority and responsibility born of nearness; mawlā — it occurred in the preceding verse; tawallī — to turn towards or to turn one's back (since it is a word of direction, it goes both ways); awwal — according to some lexicographers from the same root, "the foremost, the nearest".
And this is the side of the word that resists translation. No single English word carries it, because in Arabic it says two things at once: nearness and precedence. The one nearest to a thing is the one with the most say over it.
| Place | Who | Compared with |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | al-nabiyyu | min anfusihim — the believers' own selves |
| 2 | ulu'l-arḥāmi baʿḍuhum | min al-muʾminīna wa'l-muhājirīn — the believers and the emigrants |
The same word orders two different relationships. And there is no tension between the two; they speak of different fields.
The extent of this sentence has been debated in classical exegesis. I give the disagreement in a table. I construct no legal conclusion and I do not impose a preference.
| Explanation | What it says | Its ground | The limit to be recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Precedence of ruling and of call | A command of the Prophet is preferred over the person's own choice | The wording of the verse; verse 36 of the sūra (mā kāna li-muʾminin… al-khiyaratu) | This does not fix the extent of the call; in which matters it holds has itself been debated |
| Compassion and care | The Prophet looks to the good of the believers more than they do themselves | The expression that follows in the same verse, "his wives are their mothers" — the tie of compassion in motherhood | This reading conveys not an authority but a quality |
| Debt and liability | The burden a believer leaves behind belongs to the Prophet | Some reports are transmitted to this effect; their details are not given here | It rests on a report; it is not explicit in the wording itself |
| Inheritance (the view that counts it abrogated) | It is said that the sentence at first brought a precedence in inheritance, and that this was then regulated by the ulu'l-arḥām clause in the same verse | The subject of the second half of the verse is inheritance and kinship | The claim of abrogation is disputed; no preference is adopted in this commentary |
One. These explanations do not entirely exclude one another. More than one may be true at once; the wording of the verse imposes no restriction.
Two. In this commentary no legal conclusion at all is drawn from this sentence. The explanations have been conveyed; which of them has been made the ground of which ruling, and the divergences of the schools on the question, are not the business of this place.
What the sentence compares is striking. The verse does not say "the Prophet is nearer to you than your father, your mother, your tribe". What it sets opposite him is the person himself.
This is the furthest point a sentence of comparison can go in the Arabic language. Beyond the comparison no term is left: there is nothing nearer to a person than himself.
And the choice of the word nafs is also worth noting. Nafs is used in the Qurʾān both for "life, soul" and for "the person himself". The sentence uses both senses: "than your lives" and "than yourselves".
This sentence is directly connected with the fourth verse, and if the connection is not recorded the verse remains half understood.
The fourth verse had said: a word does not make a woman a mother — "God has not made your wives, of whom you make the ẓihār declaration, your mothers."
At first sight there seems to be a tension. There is none — and seeing the difference is the whole point of the verse.
| Ẓihār (verse 4) | This verse (6) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who says it | A man, with his own mouth | God, in His Book |
| The verb | jaʿala negated: "He has not made" | azwājuhu ummahātuhum — a nominal sentence, a ruling |
| What it establishes | Nothing; the saying stays in the mouth | A standing |
| Its extent | The whole of motherhood is claimed | Limited — see below |
That is, the fourth verse was saying "human speech cannot establish a status"; the sixth verse shows who the party is that does establish a status. The two do not contradict; together they say exactly the principle of the sūra: status depends on the authority of the one who fixes the name.
I record this as my own reading; its ground is that two verses use the same semantic field (motherhood) with two different subjects.
The extent of this maternal standing has been treated in classical exegesis, and there is a broad record on these two points: (a) the aspect of honour and respect; (b) the ruling in verse 53 of the sūra, "nor that you should marry them". Whether this standing extends to other aspects, such as inheritance and the degrees of kinship, has by contrast been debated, and no ruling is issued in this commentary.
ٱلْأَرْحَام — singular رَحِم. Root: ر-ح-م. And the concrete sense of the root is the womb — the organ in which the child is carried in the mother. From the same root come raḥma, al-Raḥmān, al-Raḥīm.
This link of roots is one of the most striking word-webs in the Qurʾān, and it was treated at al-Fātiḥa. What was recorded there was this: in Arabic the name of mercy is derived from the name of an organ; mercy is the name of the bond between the one who carries and the one carried.
And in this verse the word works in exactly that sense: ulu'l-arḥām — "those who have wombs", that is, those who come from the same womb, those who share a tie of blood.
In view of the sūra as a whole this choice of word is worth noting: the fourth and fifth verses had removed the false lineage. The sixth verse names the real lineage with an anatomical word. Against what is established by speech is set what is established by an organ.
The historical background of this is transmitted in the classical sources as follows: that there was a practice of pairing as brothers between those who emigrated to Medina and the inhabitants of the city, and that this brotherhood for a time gave rise to a relationship of inheritance; it is transmitted that this verse tied inheritance to the tie of blood.
I give this account with the note "it is transmitted" and do not enter into its legal consequence. What emerges from the text is this: the verse does not deny the value of bonds that are made — indeed, immediately afterwards it opens a door to them.
The sentence set a limit (kinship comes first), then immediately opened an exception: "except that you do a kindness to your friends."
مَعْرُوف — root ع-ر-ف. What is known, recognised, what everyone agrees to be good. The word will occur twice in this sūra (6 and 32), and in both places it will convey a measure.
And what is striking is this: the verse does not put a prohibition in the place of what it removes. The order of inheritance is tied to kinship, but the possibility of doing good is left open.
This is a behaviour repeated throughout the sūra and worth recording: the fifth verse, in removing the lineage of the adopted son, left the tie of brotherhood and of being a mawlā; the sixth verse, in giving precedence in inheritance to kinship, left the door of kindness. In removing a ruling, the sūra leaves the human relationship standing behind it. I record this as my own reading.
مَسْطُور — root س-ط-ر. Saṭr — a line, a row, a sequence. Masṭūr — written line by line. From the same root asṭār (lines) and asāṭīr (what the ancients wrote or said — according to some lexicographers traced to the same root).
The concrete sense of the word contains an order: a line is not a random piece of writing but writing set in a sequence.
And the verse ends with this word. It says that the bonds established are not arbitrary, that they are written according to an order. This agrees with the principle of the sūra: the difference between what is said with the mouth and what is written on a line was established in the fourth verse.
The three sentences of the verse describe three different bonds, and the order of the three gives a measure for today.
One. The tie of blood does not take the place of the chosen bond; but neither is it erased. The verse recognises both and gives each its own field. This leaves both the attitude that says "blood is everything" and the attitude that says "we choose our bonds" standing alone.
Two. Kindness can be done without a legal obligation. The last sentence of the verse does not leave empty the field that lies outside an order — it leaves that field to maʿrūf. The law does not close off the field of ethics.