________________
XXXIII, 4-9. THE CHAPTER OF THE CONFEDERATES.
139
made your adopted sons your real sons. That is what ye speak with your mouths; but God speaks the truth and He guides to the path!
[5] Call them by their fathers' names; that is more just in God's sight; but if ye know not their fathers, then they are your brothers in religion and your clients. There is no crime against you for what mistakes ye make therein; but what your hearts do purposely-but God is ever forgiving and merciful.
The prophet is nearer of kin to the believers than themselves, and his wives are their mothers. And blood relations are nearer in kin to each other by the Book of God than the believers and those who fled1; only your doing kindness to your kindred, that is traced in the Book.
And when we took of the prophets their compact2, from thee and from Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and Jesus the son of Mary, and took of them a rigid compact, that He might ask the truth-tellers of their truth. But He has prepared for those who misbelieve a grievous woe.
O ye who believe! remember God's favours towards you when hosts came to you and we sent against them a wind and hosts that ye could not see; and God knew what ye were doing.
mother's back,' after which they considered it as unnatural to approach them as though they were their real mothers. This practice Mohammed here forbids. They used also to consider their adopted children in the same light as real children of their body; in forbidding this practice also, Mohammed legalised his marriage with Zainab, the divorced wife of his freedman Zâid, who was also his adopted son.
2 See Part I, p. 57, note 1.
1 The Muhâgerin. s Of angels.
Digitized by
Google
