(Revealed after Hijrah)
This Surah is appropriately entitled An-Nisa’, (The Women) because it deals chiefly with the rights and responsibilities of women and also with their status and position in society. It was revealed at Medina between the third and fifth year of the Hijrah after the Battle of Uhud and it mainly deals with the subject of widows and orphans who were left behind in large numbers after that battle. Muslims and European scholars are all agreed on this point. Noldeke, the great German Orientalist, however, is inclined to place some of its verses among the Meccan revelations, because, according to him in those verses "the Jews are referred to in a friendly spirit", as they had not yet come into conflict with Muslims. Wherry thinks that the words "O people" in verse 134 show that at least this verse was revealed at Mecca because this form of address has been exclusively used in the Meccan Surahs. But to say that because a certain verse uses the expression "O people" it must, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, belong to the Meccan period is a mere assertion. The fact is that because at Mecca the number of the believers was very small and they had not yet been welded into a distinct and separate community and very few commandments of the Shari‘ah had been revealed, the Meccans—believers and disbelievers—were all addressed together by the words "O people." But as after the Emigration of the Holy Prophet to Medina the commandments of the Shari‘ah came thick and fast and an organised community of believers, quite distinct and separate from the disbelievers, had come into existence, they were addressed as "O ye who believe". But where the address is general, applying both to believers and non-believers, the expression "O people" has been used.
The connection of the Surah with the previous Chapter consists in the fact that in the former Surah one of the principal subjects dealt with was the Battle of Uhud while this Surah deals with the various problems to which that battle gave rise. The Surah also sheds a flood of light on the evil designs and machinations of the Jews and the Hypocrites of Medina who, after the Battle of Uhud, seeing that Islam was gaining great power in the land, mustered all their resources to make a last effort to destroy it root and branch. In a way also the Surah constitutes an extension of the subject matter of the preceding Surah in that it demolishes the basic Christian doctrine of Atonement, and establishes that Jesus did not die on the Cross.
As in Al-e-‘Imran, the Christian basic doctrines constitute one of the main themes of this Surah also. But in this Surah greater space has been assigned to a comparison of the detailed teachings of the two religions—Islam and Christianity—with special reference to the progress and domination of Christianity in the Latter Days. As in the Latter Days, Christian writers and speakers were to profess and proclaim loudly that Islam had degraded woman by giving her a much lower status than man, this Surah largely deals with the problems concerning females, and a cursory glance over the Qur’anic teaching about women establishes the fact that even in this respect Islamic teachings are far superior to those of Christianity. And as the subject of orphans is intimately connected with that of women, it has also received special mention in this Surah which is the first revelation to safeguard their rights and those of women. Women have not only been given all the rights to which they are legitimately entitled, particularly the right of inheritance, but have also been declared to be the sole masters and arbiters of their property. The second main topic dealt with in this Surah is that of hypocrisy. As in the Latter Days Christianity was to gain worldwide predominance and a large number of Muslims were to live under Christian Governments and, as a result of their subjugation by Christian rulers and their fear of Christian criticism of Islam they were to adopt hypocritical attitude towards their own Faith, the subject of hypocrisy has also been treated in this Surah along with that of women, and light is thrown on the depths to which a hypocrite can sink morally and spiritually. The hypocrites are warned that shame and abasement would seize them because they fear men more than their Creator. Towards its end the Surah sheds some light on the subject of Jesus’ crucifixion and it is emphatically stated and convincingly established that the belief that Jesus died on the Cross is utterly false and unfounded. Like other human beings he died a natural death, and this false doctrine is belied by proven facts of history, and even the Gospels lend no support to it. The Surah closes with a brief reversion to the subject of Kalalah in order to draw attention to the spiritual hairlessness of Jesus who in a sense was a Kalalah inasmuch as he left no spiritual successor, Prophethood having been transferred from the House of Israel to that of Ishmael.