Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi

Ayah by Ayah

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Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah Al-Ahzab — Ayah 4

33:4
مَّا جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِرَجُلٖ مِّن قَلۡبَيۡنِ فِي جَوۡفِهِۦۚ وَمَا جَعَلَ أَزۡوَٰجَكُمُ ٱلَّٰٓـِٔي تُظَٰهِرُونَ مِنۡهُنَّ أُمَّهَٰتِكُمۡۚ وَمَا جَعَلَ أَدۡعِيَآءَكُمۡ أَبۡنَآءَكُمۡۚ ذَٰلِكُمۡ قَوۡلُكُم بِأَفۡوَٰهِكُمۡۖ وَٱللَّهُ يَقُولُ ٱلۡحَقَّ وَهُوَ يَهۡدِي ٱلسَّبِيلَ ٤
Allah has never put two hearts within one person's body;1 nor has He made your wives, whom you compare to your mothers' backs (to divorce them),2 your true mothers; nor has He made those whom you adopt as sons your own sons.3 These are only words that you utter with your mouths. But Allah proclaims the Truth and directs you to the Right Path.
Footnotes
  • [1] That is, one and the same person cannot be a believer and a hypocrite, truthful and false, wicked and righteous, at one and the same time. He does not have two hearts in this chest that one should have sincerity in it and the other fearlessness of God. Therefore, a man can have only one kind of character at a time: either he will be a believer or a hypocrite, a disbeliever or a Muslim. Now if you call a believer a hypocrite, or a hypocrite a believer, it will not change the reality. The true character of the person will inevitably remain the same.
  • [2] This is what is intended to be said. The two preceding sentences are meant to support and emphasize this same point.
  • [3] Qira’at: Yaʻqub read it as: “This is a high, straight path.”
  • [4] Frequently the Qur’an addresses the events of the Hereafter in past tense; this grammatical shift should be pondered by the reader.
  • [5] A grammatical shift from past tense to present tense.
  • [6] Zihar is a term in Arabic. In old days when an Arab; in the heat of a domestic quarrel, would say to his wife: “Your back for me is as the back of my mother,” it was thought that the woman was no longer lawful for him because he had compared her to his mother. About this Allah says: “A woman does not become a man’s mother just because he has called her his mother or compared her to his mother. His mother is the woman who bore him. Only his calling his wife his mother cannot change the reality.” See (Surah Al- Mujadilah: Ayats 2-4).