فَٰحِشَةَ

4:20, 26; 24:20.

Important Words:

الفاحشة (lewdness) is derived from فحش. They say فحش الامر i.e. the matter or the affair or the thing was or became foul, evil, immodest or lewd; or it became excessively foul, etc. فحشت المرأة means, the woman became foul or ugly. فاحشهmeans, he vied with him or strove to surpass him in foul or obscene speech or language, etc. فاحشة therefore means, an excess or enormity or anything exceeding the bounds of rectitude; or a thing excessively and enormously foul, evil, immoral, lewd or obscene; a sin or crime which is excessively foul; adultery or fornication. فحشاءbesides giving the same meaning as فاحشة also signifies avarice or niggardliness in the payment of Zakah or the poor-rate (Lane).

Commentary:

The women referred to in this verse are those guilty of foul or immoral conduct short of adultery. Abu Muslim and Mujahid, among others, have also held this view.

The words, confine them to the houses until death overtake them or Allah open for them a way, mean that they should be prevented from mixing with other women until they reform themselves or get married, marriage being an effective means of weaning people from immoral practices. As the offence mentioned is a serious one, four witnesses are considered necessary in order to prevent injustice being done to women.

Some scholars have sought to interpret the verse in the light of a saying of the Holy Prophet which runs as follows: "Learn from me, Allah has indeed opened for them a way, which is that if an unmarried couple commit fornication with each other they should receive a hundred stripes and should be banished for one year. But if a married man commits adultery with a married woman, then they should receive a hundred stripes each and be stoned to death" (Jarir, iv. 182). These scholars hold that the word فاحشة (fahishah) mentioned in the verse means "adultery" and that this verse prescribed that the women who committed adultery were to be detained in their houses till their death or till the time when God should open a way for them, i.e. reveal the law concerning them; and that the law which was afterwards revealed was to the effect that an unmarried woman committing fornication should receive a hundred stripes and one year’s banishment, while a married woman guilty of adultery should be stoned to death after she had received a hundred stripes. This interpretation, however, is open to many objections:

1. If the words, confine them to the houses until death overtake them or Allah open for them a way, mean that they were to be detained in their houses until God gave His law concerning them, the question is, what hindered God from giving His law at the very time of the revelation of the verse under comment? There is no hint here that the time was not yet ripe for such a law to be revealed. In this case, the only inference will be that God hesitated to give the necessary law at the time when this verse was revealed because He was not yet decided, the matter being still under His consideration. Such a supposition cannot be made about God.

2. The law mentioned in the above-quoted hadith is not found in the Quran.

3. The Holy Prophet’s own practice was against this hadith. No less than four persons were stoned to death for adultery in his lifetime, but none of them was given the punishment of a hundred stripes before being stoned as the above-mentioned hadith prescribes.

It may also be pointed out here that according to the usage of the Quran, the word فاحشة (fahishah) does not always mean "adultery" but as shown under Important Words above, it is also applied to all sorts of excesses or sins or crimes or acts exceeding the bounds of rectitude. For this meaning of the word the reader is referred to 33:31 which says: O wives of the Prophet, if any of you be guilty of فاحشة مبینة (manifestly dishonourable conduct); and 65:2 which says: unless they commit فاحشة مبینة (an act which is manifestly foul); and 7:29 which says: and when they commit فاحشة (a foul deed). In none of these verses does the word فاحشة mean adultery.

27:55; 29:29.

Important Words:

لوط (Lot) was a nephew and contemporary of Abraham (Gen. 11:27, 31). See also 6:87.

Commentary:

This verse throws some light on the fact that the Perfect Law could not be revealed in the beginning of the world, because laws are meant to meet and remedy evils, and so religious Laws were gradually revealed as evils grew and spread. If a Perfect Law had been revealed in the very beginning, detailing all the evils, it would, in a way, have proved the means of teaching men evils of which they were yet ignorant. Hence, a Perfect Law could be revealed only at a time when all or most of the evils, particularly those known as root evils, had made their appearance and become established. Such was the case when the Quran was revealed. To this fact the Quran alludes in the words, Corruption has appeared (and become established) on land and sea, (30:42), which means that at the advent of the Holy Prophet, all the diverse root evils had become manifest and established.

The "abomination" mentioned in the present verse is explained in the next. The words, as no one in the world ever did before you, imply that it was a new kind of evil which was unknown before, or that its present extent had had no parallel before.

7:81; 29:29.

7:81; 11:79.