al-Taḥrīm 66:1

Yā ayyuha'n-nabiyyu lima tuḥarrimu mā aḥalla'llāhu laka tabtaghī marḍāta azwājik, wa'llāhu ghafūrun raḥīm

"O Prophet! Why do you make forbidden to yourself what God has made lawful to you, seeking the good pleasure of your wives? God is much forgiving, most merciful."

The question of the places where the Qurʾān criticises its own prophet was taken up in ʿAbasa; the findings there — the fact itself, the list of examples (al-Tawba 9/43, al-Anfāl 8/67-68, al-Aḥzāb 33/37 and this verse), and the note that this must be presented as an observation and not as a proof — are not repeated here. That section had already taken this verse into its own list.

What must be done here is not repetition but distinction. For the criticism in ʿAbasa and the criticism here are not of the same kind.

The difference gathers here: what is criticised in ʿAbasa is a prioritisation supposed to be correct. What is criticised here is a behaviour that looks more pious. To deprive oneself of something looks, from outside, not like a deficiency but like a surplus. The verse objects to this.

And the direction of the objection must be read carefully: the verse does not say "you acted harshly", nor does it say "you wronged yourself". It says this: you narrowed a place God had widened.

This is no ordinary warning. Drawing the boundary between lawful and forbidden belongs, by a principle repeated many times over in the Qurʾān, to God alone. The Qurʾān criticises openly, in other places, those who set this boundary on their own: "Do not say, on the strength of the lie your tongues invent, 'this is lawful and this is forbidden'" (al-Naḥl 16/116). That the same Qurʾān corrects the lightest and most private form of the same act in its own messenger too shows that the principle is not bent for anyone.

The finding recorded in al-Baqara at 2/124 — that the sentence "My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers", having been said to a prophet who was asking, shows that the rule is bent for no one — meets a counterpart here: the rule that the authority to set boundaries belongs to God is applied first of all to the messenger himself.

The body of the verse is built between two verbs and the two come from opposite roots. Both must be opened out, because the English words "forbidden" and "lawful" have lost the picture the roots carry.

Root ح ر م (ḥ-r-m). At the centre of the root there is no prohibition. At its centre lie setting apart and making inviolable: taking a thing out of general use, drawing a boundary round it and closing it to everyone's access.

The derivatives of the root show this plainly:

• حَرَم (ḥaram) — the region around Mecca in which no hunting is done, no blood is shed, no tree is cut. Not a forbidden zone; an inviolable zone.
• إحرام (iḥrām) — the state entered upon in the pilgrimage and the ʿumra. A person takes himself out of ordinary life for a time.
• مَحْرَم (maḥram) — a close relative whom it is forever forbidden to marry. But the English borrowing harem (a part of the house set apart, closed to outsiders) stands closer to the root's original sense: set apart, not open to everyone.
• حُرْمَة (ḥurma) — reverence. English keeps the two apart with two unconnected words — "reverence" and "prohibition" — but the same root gives both.
• حَرِيم (ḥarīm) — the protected zone around a house, a well, a property; in law it is still used in this sense.
• مَحْرُوم (maḥrūm) — the one to whom something is not given, who is left without his share.

That the same root gives both "sacred" and "forbidden" is no coincidence. Both are the result of the same act: drawing a line round something. What is inside the line may be inviolable because it is sacred, or because it is dangerous. The act is the same, the reason different.

This is needed in order to understand the verse: what the Prophet did was to declare inviolable around himself something lawful to him. That is, not an ordinary "I shall not do it" but a change of status.

The pattern: تَفْعِيل (tafʿīl). Not ḥaruma but ḥarrama. The tafʿīl form states causation: not "it became forbidden" but "he made it forbidden". That is, the verb has an agent, and that agent is the one the verse addresses. The choice of word takes the act out of being a state and makes it a decision.

Root ح ل ل (ḥ-l-l). The opposite pole. The concrete sense of the root: the untying of a knot, the opening of a bond, the setting down of a load in order to make camp.

• حَلَّ العُقْدَة — he untied the knot.
• حَلَّ بِالمَكَان — he made camp at a place; the traveller comes to have "alighted" there because he unties the animal's load. From the same root come maḥall (place) and ḥulūl (settling in a place).
• حَلَال (ḥalāl) — untied, without a bond, carrying no restriction upon it.

That is, in Arabic ḥalāl means, before it means "permitted", "whose bond has been untied". And ḥarām means, before it means "prohibited", "round which a line has been drawn". The two words have been thought out by way of a knot and a fence.

This picture clarifies what the verse says: God untied a bond; the one addressed tied it again.

And it is worth recalling here an observation recorded in al-Baqara: the Qurʾān's choices of word most often build abstract notions by way of concrete physical operations. The pair lawful-forbidden is one of the clearest examples of this — the most abstract distinction in law is recounted with a rope and a boundary stone.

لِمَ = li (for) + mā (what), with its final alif dropped. A particle asking for a cause.

Questions of this kind directed at the Prophet are few in the Qurʾān and each is weighty. The form of the question is worth pausing over, because other forms could have been chosen:

• Prohibition: "Do not make forbidden to yourself what God has made lawful." — A direct prohibition.
• Statement: "You have made forbidden to yourself what God has made lawful." — A finding.
• Question: "Why do you make it forbidden?" — What the verse chose.

All three carry the same information; the three do not do the same work.

A prohibition leaves the one addressed passive: a command comes, it is obeyed. A statement is an accusation: this is what you did. A question, however, asks the one addressed for a ground. And to ask for a ground is to put the one addressed inside a reasoning — he is expected to notice for himself a ground he cannot give.

The finding recorded in al-Māʿūn about the rhetorical function of a question holds good here too: a question does not make one concede; it makes one find. And in al-Muzzammil another face of the same technique was recorded: a question that has no answer silences the one addressed.

Here there is a third function as well, peculiar to this verse: the question softens the correction but does not lighten it. There is no reduction whatever in the dose of criticism in the sentence; the one addressed is named openly ("O Prophet"), the act is openly attributed to him (tuḥarrimu), even its ground is stated (tabtaghī marḍāta azwājik). The only thing softened is the form of the sentence.

The finding about "the architecture of courtesy" recorded in ʿAbasa meets us here in another form: "courtesy is not the bending of what is true but the correcting of the way in which what is true is carried."

This detail is often skipped, but it is important.

When the Qurʾān addresses the Prophet it uses two formulas: يا أيها النبي (O Prophet) and يا أيها الرسول (O Messenger). And there is a difference of function between the two formulas — not a fixed rule, but an observable tendency:

• Yā ayyuha'r-rasūl generally comes in contexts having to do with the task of conveying: transmitting, announcing, making known.
• Yā ayyuha'n-nabiyy comes more in contexts directed at the person and his position: family, house, war, legal regulation.

In this sūra the address comes twice and both are in the nabiyy form (verses 1 and 9). The next sūra, al-Ṭalāq, opens with the same word. This is a datum that makes one think the distinction is not accidental; but I do not impose it as a rule, because there are also crossing usages of the two formulas in the Qurʾān.

And another point: even while criticising the one it addresses, the verse calls him by the name of his office. It does not say "O Muḥammad"; it says "O Prophet". That is, the criticism is not made by suspending the position. The position stays where it is, and the correction is made inside it.

This is the complement of the architecture recorded in ʿAbasa: there the criticism was said and left, here the criticism is said from inside the title.

Root ن ب أ (n-b-ʾ): nabaʾ — news that is carried, that has weight. The full analysis of the root and the distinction between nabaʾ and khabar were made in al-Nabaʾ; I do not repeat them. I record only this: the view that the word nabī derives from this root was given there as one of two derivations. And the third verse of this sūra will use the same root four times at once — there is a link between the word of address and the weave of the third verse.

The verse does not content itself with establishing the act; it states its cause as well. And the cause stated is not a cause to be blamed.

Root ب غ ي (b-gh-y). The concrete sense of the root is to want, to seek, to go after. In al-Bayyina the negative branch of the same root — baghy, that is, exceeding the limit, wanting more than one's own share — was taken up in connection with al-Baqara 2/213. The root has two directions and the difference between them lies in the legitimacy of what is sought: to seek is legitimate, to exceed is not.

The pattern: the افتعال (iftiʿāl) form, ibtighāʾ. This form most often states reflexivity and effort: a person's doing something for himself, with exertion. Kataba (he wrote) → iktataba (he had something written for himself). That is, ibtighāʾ is not a passive "wanting"; it is going after something, trying to obtain it.

And the verb is imperfect: tabtaghī. Continuity. Not a single reckoning.

مَرْضَاة (marḍāt) — root ر ض و (r-ḍ-w): to be well pleased, to be content. Marḍāt is the mīmī verbal noun of riḍā: good pleasure, the state of being well pleased.

And here there is an observation which I record as my own reading — I do not present it as transmitted:

This word is used in the Qurʾān predominantly for the good pleasure of God. Ibtighāʾa marḍāti'llāh — "seeking God's good pleasure" — is a formula repeated in the Qurʾān and it describes a behaviour that is praised. The raḍiya'llāhu ʿanhum wa raḍū ʿanh treated at the last verse of al-Bayyina is from the same root; there the word stands as the highest recompense set above the description of the garden.

Now look at this verse. The same lofty word comes, together with the same verb of seeking, but with its object changed: marḍāta azwājik.

That is, in order to recount what it censures the verse chooses a word that is not censured, and only changes its direction. The fine criticism the sentence carries lies here: what was done is not a bad work — it is a good work done to the wrong address.

And this takes the verse out of being a criticism of family. The verse does not say "do not please your wives"; it says do not change a boundary God has set in order to please your wives. The two are entirely different things, and if they are confused the verse comes to say something it never said.

Indeed the Qurʾān itself mentions contentment between spouses as a value; the whole regulation the next sūra — al-Ṭalāq — sets up rests on the parties not harming one another. That is, the matter is not the seeking of contentment but by what means contentment is sought.

Three points:

1. A circumstantial clause. Tabtaghī marḍāta azwājik stands grammatically as a circumstantial (ḥāl): it states in what state the act is done. That is, "you make forbidden" and "you seek" are not two separate works; the second is the state within which the first stands.

This has a consequence: the verse builds the two verbs not as cause and effect but one inside the other. The act of making forbidden takes place within the seeking.

2. The object left indefinite. Mā aḥalla'llāhu laka — "what God has made lawful to you". A relative pronoun is used, that is, the object is not named.

This is the first instance of the attitude the sūra keeps up from beginning to end. The verse could have said what was made forbidden; it does not. And its not saying has a consequence: the ruling becomes independent of the object. The sentence is now not about a particular food or a particular behaviour; it is about everything that is lawful.

The measure of the tradition of legal method works here of itself: al-ʿibratu bi-ʿumūmi'l-lafẓ lā bi-khuṣūṣi's-sabab — the ruling goes by the generality of the wording. This rule was already recorded in al-Māʿūn. The difference is this: in al-Māʿūn we were applying the rule; here the verse comes already applied. The wording has been left general from the start.

3. "Laka" — to you. The verse does not say "what God has made lawful"; it says "what God has made lawful to you". That is, the being-lawful is mentioned as attributed to the one addressed.

This detail has an effect: the lawful is positioned as the addressee's own share. He is closing to himself something that was given to him. And as with the root ʿafw treated at al-Baqara 2/109, the picture of maḥrūm here (from the same ح ر م root) appears of itself: a person is depriving himself of his own share.

The most striking place in the verse is perhaps its end.

It does not end as you would expect a sentence of rebuke to end. It does not end with a threat, it does not end with "do not do it again", it does not end with a sanction. It ends with forgiveness and mercy — and moreover not in a separate verse but within the same verse.

This is another example of the finding recorded in ʿAbasa: "the criticism ends and no apology is asked, no repentance commanded, no expiation set. It is said, and left." Here a further step is taken: it is said and closed in the same breath.

Note the structure of the sentence: both adjectives are in the faʿūl and faʿīl patterns, that is, they state intensity — much forgiving, greatly merciful. And both come as God's permanent attributes, not as a reaction peculiar to this incident. That is, the sentence does not say "this time He forgave"; it says "He is so in any case".

An observation, as my own reading: this close makes one read the question at the beginning of the verse again in retrospect. The question lima tuḥarrimu, together with these two names appended at its end, becomes not a calling to account but an offer of opening. The total sense of the sentence is this: you narrowed; but you had no need to narrow, because the one before you is not one who narrows but one who widens.

One. To lay down extra prohibitions is not piety.

This is the most direct consequence of the verse and it is generally skipped, because it clashes with an intuition running the other way. The common intuition is this: religious sensitivity is measured by the number of things not done. Whoever closes more things to himself is counted more careful.

The verse corrects this intuition. And in correcting it, it uses the strongest example: the person doing this is the Prophet, and the reason for what he does is not selfishness but concern to please someone else. That is, the example has been chosen in the best-intentioned form it could take — and it is corrected all the same.

The measure that comes out of this is: the authority to draw boundaries is not in the person himself. A person may, by his own preference, not do something; that is the subject of no verse at all. But when he carries what he does not do into the status of "forbidden to me", he has used an authority that does not belong to him.

The difference is fine but large in practice: the difference between "I do not choose this" and "this is forbidden to me". The first is a choice, the second a ruling.

Two. Bending the principle in order to protect the relationship.

The mechanism the verse records is thoroughly familiar: giving up what one knows to be right, or one's own due, in order not to upset someone close.

This behaviour is most often counted a virtue and most often really is one — self-sacrifice, flexibility, accommodation. The Qurʾān praises these openly elsewhere.

The limit the verse points to is here: self-sacrifice must be made out of one's own property. A person may give up his own share, his own time, his own comfort. But when the thing he gives up is a ruling, he is no longer giving out of his own property.

And the practical counterpart of this is one of the traps relationships fall into most often: that the concessions given in order to please the other side end, past a certain point, by abolishing the person's own measure. A person left without a measure comes after a while to be unable to give anything even to the person he was trying to please — because he has no fixed place left from which to give.

Three. The way criticism is carried.

The verse does the hardest thing that can be done in a single sentence: it says the criticism without softening it at all, without shaking the position of the one addressed at all, and it closes.

The four steps of the technique stand in the grammar:

1. The one addressed is called by his title (the position is preserved). 2. A question is asked, no verdict is given (the reasoning is left to the one addressed). 3. The ground is stated and accepted (the intention is not disparaged). 4. The sentence closes with forgiveness (the matter is closed).

Today criticism generally loses at least two of these four. Either the position is shaken ("you are always like this anyway"), or the intention is disparaged ("really because it suited him"), or the matter is not closed — what was said is stored up to be used again later.

What the verse shows is that all four at once are possible.