Women (Al-Nisa’)

Commentary

(a) However, according to the requirements of the age, different prophets received different kinds of succour from God. This is still how God functions, so that those of his servants who came forward to spread His message will likewise, according to their circumstances, receive special divine succour, in order that they may effectively continue to carry out their dawah responsibilities. At the time when the Prophet Muhammad was chosen as a Messenger by God, the Jews enjoyed the status of representatives of the divine religion. For their part, they had supposed themselves to be the chosen people, the sole custodians of divine religion. As such, they occupied all the religious positions of honour. Not wishing to acknowledge any other’s greatness save their own, they refused to believe that the Arab prophet had been sent by God to communicate His message to mankind. They thought that they had a monopoly over religion; that, if they did not testify to a person’s being a representative of God, he would lack all credibility. They had forgotten that this was God’s universe, its system tended by God’s obedient angels. Thus the real validation comes from God, and is supported by the entire system of the universe. Indeed, it is God, with His entire universe, who supports His messenger, rather than someone’s self-styled suppositions. (a) Those who respond negatively to the call of God by ignoring and rejecting it show quite clearly that they have strayed far from true submission to God. They say such things as are refuted by the entire universe, and take up a position against a plan which is supported by the Lord of the universe. Obviously, there is no greater foolishness than this. Such perverse behaviour leads them into denying and rejecting God rather than acknowledging Him and submitting to Him. Day by day they are removed further away from the truth, until they ultimately fall into the pit of eternal damnation. The denial of the call of God is the denial of oneself. The call of God is made in such clear terms that no one should find any difficulty in understanding it. Moreover, those who deny the call of God are, as it were, showing their audacity in the face of God Himself. Impudence and presumptuousness are the greatest crimes in the eyes of God. If man were to keep the windows of his heart open, the divine call would appear to him an exact answer to his own quest. He would feel that the truth which had been veiled in human interpretations had been brought to him in its pure and original form by the arrangement of God Himself, and that it was an expression of God’s own wisdom and knowledge rather than its being a matter of the personal ambition of a human being.