(Revealed after Hijrah)
The Surah was revealed at Medina. It was revealed between the 5th and the 7th year of the Hijrah, possibly up to the 8th and the 9th year. There is sufficient internal evidence to establish this fact. In the preceding few Chapters the prophecy was repeatedly and emphatically made that Islam would continue to make progress and gather strength, till the whole of Arabia would accept its Message, and idolatry would disappear from the country, never to return. In the immediately preceding Surah—As-Sajdah—it was stated that Muslims would be favoured with all sorts of physical comforts and material prosperity. Towards its end the disbelievers had tauntingly asked when the prophecy about the victory of Islam and its great spread and expansion would be fulfilled. That question has received an emphatic answer in the present Surah. It is stated that prophecy about the rise and progress of Islam has already been fulfilled and Islam has become a great power.
With the accession to Islam of great political power and prestige and with its emergence as a full-fledged State, the ordinances of the Shari‘ah began to be revealed in quick succession to guide Muslims in political and social matters. This Surah embodies several such ordinances. At the outset it abolishes a deep-rooted custom of the Arabs—the adoption of another person’s son as one’s own. Then it refers to a very deep and real spiritual relationship that subsists between the Holy Prophet and Muslims. In his capacity as their spiritual father he stands closer to them than even their own selves and his wives are their spiritual mothers. Next, the Surah gives a somewhat detailed description of the Battle of the Trench which was the fiercest encounter in which the Muslims had so far been engaged. The whole of Arabia had risen like one man against Islam and a well-equipped army, numbering from 10,000 to 20,000 strong, had marched on Medina. The Muslims were a paltry 1200, though according to some writers the total number of those employed in digging the Trench including women and children was in the neighbourhood of 3000. The combat was quite unequal. The Muslims were in sore straits. But God sent His hosts and the powerful enemy was routed and scattered. In the next few verses the Surah states that while in a religious community there is no dearth of sincere and devoted followers, there are also to be found in its ranks, hypocrites and the weak of faith. These hypocrites loudly profess to be true followers but when in the Prophet’s time Medina was attacked by a mighty force, they asked to be excused from fighting on the side of Muslims on very lame excuses. They broke their plighted word. The Banu Quraiah were the first to dishonour their pledge and to leave Muslims in the lurch when the latter were hemmed in on all sides and the very fate of Islam hung in the balance. After the Confederates dispersed, the Holy Prophet marched against them and they received deserved punishment.
As a result of the Battle of the Trench and of the subsequent banishment of the Banu Quraiah large booty fell into the hands of Muslims. From a persecuted and economically very poor minority they had grown into a rich, powerful and prosperous State. Material wealth brings in its train worldly-mindedness, a desire for ease and comfort and apathy towards service and sacrifice. This is a state of affairs which a Reformer has specially to guard against. Love of ease and comfort generally makes appearance first in the domestic circle, and as the members of the Holy Prophet’s household were to serve as a model in social behaviour, it was in the fitness of things that they should have been required to set an example in self-denial. The Holy Prophet’s wives were asked to make a choice between a life of comfort and ease and his simple and even austere companionship and they lost no time in making their choice. They preferred the Prophet’s company. The wives of the Holy Prophet were particularly enjoined to set an example in piety and righteous conduct, as befitted the wives of the greatest of God’s Prophets and in preserving the dignity and decorum of their exalted position, and by teaching Muslims the precepts and commandments of their religion. The Surah, then, makes a reference to Zainab’s marriage with Zaid. The failure of this marriage and Zainab’s subsequent marriage with the Holy Prophet served a double purpose. By giving in marriage Zainab, his own cousin and a full-blooded Arab lady, intensely proud of her ancestry and exalted social position, to a freed slave, the Holy Prophet had sought to level to the ground all those invidious class distinctions and divisions from which the Arabian society had suffered, as according to Islam all men were free and equal in the sight of God. Next, the Surah removes a possible misgiving to which the abolition of the custom of adoption might have given rise, viz. that in the absence of real sons the Holy Prophet will die issueless and his Movement will wither and die out for want of an heir. It says that it was God’s own plan that the Prophet should have no male issue; but this did not mean that he would be issueless since he was the spiritual father of the whole of mankind. As practical proof of this claim he would bring into being a community of righteous and most loyal spiritual sons. The Surah further says that since the Holy Prophet is the spiritual father of the Faithful, his wives are their spiritual mothers, and therefore marriage with them, after the death of the Holy Prophet, is a grievous sin. The Holy Prophet himself is told that he is not to divorce anyone of his existing wives, nor to add to their number, and his wives are enjoined that, consistently with their dignity as "Mothers of the Faithful," they should observe certain rules regarding dress, etc. when going out. This injunction enjoining privacy and decorum applies equally to all Muslim women. Towards its close the Surah points to the very high destiny of man and to his great responsibilities as the crown of God’s whole creation. He has been endowed with great powers and capabilities denied to other beings and, therefore, he alone among all creation can, by acting upon the laws of the Shari‘ah, imbibe and reflect in his person Divine attributes.