The Ocean of the Quran

A verse by verse explanation of The Ultimate Scripture

Al-Mujādilah – Verse 5

إِنَّ الَّذينَ يُحادّونَ اللَّهَ وَرَسولَهُ كُبِتوا كَما كُبِتَ الَّذينَ مِن قَبلِهِم ۚ وَقَد أَنزَلنا آياتٍ بَيِّناتٍ ۚ وَلِلكافِرينَ عَذابٌ مُهينٌ

Indeed those who oppose Allah and His Apostle were subdued just as were subdued those before them. We have certainly sent down manifest signs, and there is a humiliating punishment for the faithless.

EXEGESIS

The term yuḥāddūna is a plural imperfect tense verb which means those who dissent, those who act contrary to, those who oppose the limits,‎[1] those who oppose vehemently, such as fighting with iron (weapons), or opposing by way of severe disputation and (or) thwarting access to the faith,‎[2] those who are hostile or show hostility‎[3] as if on opposite poles.‎[4] Its verbal noun is muḥāddah which therefore means dissension, hostility, and vehement opposition, both armed and unarmed.‎[5] The verbal noun derives from the noun ḥadd,‎[6] which means limit, edge, and boundary, as if two protagonists are on opposite limits or boundaries to each other on a matter.‎[7] It can also mean prevention and barring,‎[8] as if the protagonists are pushing back and preventing the other from a thing.‎[9]

Two verbs from the root letters k-b-t occur in this verse. One is the passive plural perfect tense verb kubitū and the other is the passive singular perfect tense verb kubita. The two passive perfect tense verbs mean to be suppressed, to be overwhelmed or overcome, to be brought low,‎[10] to be dishonoured and debased,‎[11] to be humiliated,‎[12] where it is suggested that its verbal noun kabt essentially means overthrowing, overturning, turning upside down.‎[13] Qatādah, the famed exegete, understood these verbs to mean to be seized with punishment (ukhidhū),‎[14] and al-Farrāʾ, the famed Arab grammarian, understood them to mean to be vexed, frustrated, exasperated (ughīẓū), saddened, and aggrieved (uḥzinū).‎[15]

EXPOSITION

Although this verse and the next could be understood to be the start of a new theme and a new conversation, which enunciates the perils of opposing God and His Messenger, the literary context suggests that these two verses are actually carrying on with the same tone, theme, and conversation as the previous verse, and are in the context of explaining the terminal part of the preceding verse which conveys the prohibition of opposing God and His Messenger.‎[16] Indeed, the terminal part of the previous verse has much in common with this verse, both from the literary perspective and the thematic.

The terminal part of verse 4 has the phrase ḥudūd allāh, while the beginning part of this verse has the phrase yuḥāddūn allāh, where the noun ḥudūd and the verb yuḥāddūna share the same root letters. This is while the threatening statement at the end of verse 5 – and there is a humiliating punishment for the faithless – resembles closely the terminal part of verse 4 –and there is a painful punishment for the faithless – and the entirety of verse 5 is censorious and threatening as is the terminal part of verse 4. Therefore, verse 5 is carrying on with where verse 4 terminated. It could even be argued that verses 5-6 relate equally to the succeeding verses 7-10, as they do to 1-4, and therefore their placement here is apt as a transition.

Thus after clearly specifying that conjugal relations are forbidden in case ẓihār is invoked save after discharging expiation and that these are God’s limits, further calling upon belief in God and His Messenger and forbidding from transgressing and violating the limits of God and rejecting them, this verse threatens that if the limits of God were violated, the perpetrators would become from among the opponents of God and His Messenger, and the consequence would be humiliation and disgrace. This is because, as the verse points out, those who oppose God and His Messenger by means of dissent (yuḥāddūna) and being counter-revolutionaries to the Islamic effort at rectification and reform, were subdued and disgraced in the recent past, where a number of Quran commentators invoke the humiliating defeat during the Battle of the Trench sustained by the cohort of Arab polytheists and Jews as a relevant example. These had gathered together in huge numbers against the Muslims in 5 ah.‎[17] This is just as those before them were overwhelmed and disgraced; the latter being a reference to those who opposed and fought the past prophets and messengers,‎[18] the implication being that those who do so in the present and the future would be subjected to the same fate. It is therefore not improbable that the warning in Indeed those who oppose Allah and His Apostle refers to the hypocrites at the time of Prophet Muhammad (s) who were in league with those who were hostile to the Muslims as well as in league with the Jews and the polytheists while outwardly feigning submission to Islam.‎[19] Thus God disgraced them multiple times. It is also possible that the reference is to the disbelievers in general.‎[20]

Thereafter, God emphasises this message by saying We have certainly sent down manifest signs – clear proofs and arguments in the Quran and what it contains of evidence about the existence of God, the prophecy of His Messenger, and the permissible and the impermissible, and especially in this case, clear enunciations regarding ẓihār and its expiation such that it would be wrong for any intelligent person to reject the limits of God after Quranic instructions in its regard were made known.

For the faithless, meaning those who deny what We have revealed of the clear communications in the Quran, there is a humiliating punishment, which they would deserve and which would render them bereft of their esteem and pride. This part of the verse therefore not only unequivocally asserts the divine origin of the Quran and the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Prophet in what he preached and conveyed of God’s communications, but at the same time threateningly asserts that those who disbelieve in them and reject them shall incur a humiliating punishment.‎[21] It also shows that there was great resistance to this new ruling by the hypocrites who were instigating others to oppose it too.

This verse therefore describes two punishments for those who oppose and act contrary to God’s and the Prophet’s instructions. The first is a worldly punishment in the form of subjugation and disgrace (kabt) akin to the subjugation and disgrace experienced by the disbelievers in the near and distant past, while the second is the hereafter one described as a humiliating punishment (ʿadhābun muhīn).‎[22] This is borne out clearly by the next verse, while 2:114 and 5:33 reiterate this message of a dual punishment for those who oppose God and His Messenger, that is, a worldly punishment and a hereafter one.

[1] Tibyan, 9/545; Tabrisi, 9/371, 374; Mizan, 19/180.
[2] Razi, 29/488.
[3] Tabrisi, 9/374; Kashif, 7/267; Safi, 5/144.
[4] Safi, 5/144.
[5] Amthal, 18/113.
[6] Tabrisi, 9/371.
[7] Munyah, 28/54.
[8] Tabrisi, 9/371; Munyah, 28/54.
[9] Munyah, 28/54.
[10] Arabic-English Dictionary of Quranic Usage, p. 791; Mizan, 19/180; Razi, 29/488.
[11] Tabrisi.J, 4/257; Mizan, 19/180; Razi, 29/488.
[12] Tibyan, 9/545; Tabrisi.J, 4/257; Mizan, 19/180; Razi, 29/488.
[13] Safi, 5/144.
[14] Tibyan, 9/545; Tabrisi, 9/371, 374.
[15] Tibyan, 9/545.
[16] Mizan, 19/180; Munyah, 28/55.
[17] Zamakhshari, 4/489; Munyah, 28/55.
[18] Tibyan, 9/545; Tabrisi, 9/374; Mizan, 19/180; Razi, 29/488.
[19] Razi, 29/488.
[20] Razi, 29/488.
[21] Mizan, 19/180; Tabrisi, 9/374; Razi, 29/488.
[22] Razi, 29/488; Munyah, 28/55-56.