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144
THE QUR'ÂN.
XXXIII, 35-39.
men who remember God much, and women who remember Him,—God has prepared for them forgiveness and a mighty hire.
It is not for a believing man or for a believing woman, when God and His Apostle have decided an affair, to have the choice in that affair; and whoso rebels against God and His Apostle has erred with an obvious error.
And when thou didst say to him God had shown favour to and thou hadst shown favour to, 'Keep thy wife to thyself and fear God;' and thou didst conceal in thy soul what God was about to display; and didst fear men, though God is more deserving that thou shouldst fear Him; and when Zaid had fulfilled his desire of her 1 we did wed thee to her that there should be no hindrance to the believers in the matter of the wives of their adopted sons when they have fulfilled their desire of them: and so God's bidding to be done 2.
There is no hindrance to the prophet about what God has ordained for him ;-(such was) the course of God with those who have passed away before, and God's bidding is a decreed decree! Those who
1 I. e. divorced her.
Zaid was Mohammed's freedman and adopted son. Mohammed had seen and admired Zaid's wife Zainab, and her husband at once offered to divorce her: this Mohammed dissuaded him from until the transaction was sanctioned by the verse. The relations of the Arabs to their adopted children were, as has been remarked before, p. 138, note 2, very strict; and Mohammed's marriage with Zâinab occasioned much scandal among his contemporaries. This passage and those at the commencement of the chapter abrogate all these inconvenient restrictions. Zâid and Abu Laheb, Surah CXI, are the only two persons of Mohammed's acquaintance who are mentioned in the Qur'ân by name.
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