Sūrah Al-Mujādalah The Pleading Woman
سورة المجادلة
A Medinan sūrah of 22 verses. Al-Ṭabarī examines the ẓihār divorce case of Khawlah bint Thaʿlabah, the fiqh debate over the ẓihār expiation, and the prohibition on secret counsels between hypocrites.
Surah Overview
Key Themes from Al-Ṭabarī
The ẓihār case (58:1–4) is analyzed through chains from ʿĀʾishah: Khawlah came to the Prophet complaining that her husband Aws ibn al-Ṣāmit had said "you are to me like my mother's back" (ẓihār a pre-Islamic divorce declaration) and was now abandoning her. She argued with the Prophet, and ʿĀʾishah heard from the next room but could not make out the words. Then the revelation came establishing the expiation order. Al-Ṭabarī uses this chain to show the divine responsiveness to individual human situations.
The expiation order (58:3–4) free a slave, then fast two consecutive months, then feed sixty poor is analyzed by al-Ṭabarī as legally sequential: each step is only reached when the prior step is impossible. He traces Companion legal opinions confirming this sequence, noting the practical fiqh implication: the order in the verse is the order of the law, not a menu of options.
- Individual divine attention: The ẓihār narrative shows Allah responding to a single woman's complaint al-Ṭabarī uses this to teach divine care for individual justice.
- Sequential expiation: The kafārah order is legally mandatory and sequential not flexible through Companion chain verification.
- Hypocrite whispering: Secret counsels are specifically prohibited because hypocrites weaponized them the prohibition has a historical context.
- ʿĀʾishah chain: Her account of hearing Khawlah from the next room is one of al-Ṭabarī's most humanizing occasion-of-revelation narratives.
- Seating etiquette: 58:11's seating instruction is traced through chains from the Medinan gathering context the Prophet's mosque and limited seating during religious gatherings.