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Chapter 66

The Forbiddingal-Taḥrīm ( التحريم )

12 verses • revealed at Medinan

»The surah that opens with admonishing the Prophet against The Forbidding or prohibition of something he once imposed on himself for the purpose of not offending his wives, though God had made it lawful for him. Named after the phrase “why do you forbid” (li mā tuḥrimu) in verse 1. It mentions two of the Prophet’s wives, namely Ḥafṣah and ʿĀyishah, for an incident when a confidence was betrayed (verse 3 ff.) and urges all believers to submit themselves to God and to guard themselves and their families against Hellfire (verse 6). The surah closes by giving examples of believing and disbelieving women (verse 10 ff.).«

The surah is also known as Holding (something) to be Forbidden, The Prohibition

بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ

Muhammad Asad: In The Name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace:

1
يا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ لِمَ تُحَرِّمُ ما أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكَ ۖ تَبتَغي مَرضاتَ أَزواجِكَ ۚ وَاللَّهُ غَفورٌ رَحيمٌ

Muhammad Asad

REVEALED in the second half of the Medina period - probably in 7 H. - this surah has been occasionally designated as "The Surah of the Prophet" (Zamakhshari) inasmuch as the first half of it deals with certain aspects of his personal and family life.
O PROPHET! Why dost thou, out of a desire to please [one or another of] thy wives, impose [on thyself] a prohibition of something that God has made lawful to thee?1 But God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace:
  • There are several essentially conflicting - and, therefore, in their aggregate, not very trustworthy - reports as to the exact reason or reasons why, at some time during the second half of the Medina period, the Prophet declared on oath that for one month he would have no intercourse with any of his wives. Still, while the exact reason cannot be established with certainty, it is sufficiently clear from the above-mentioned ahadith that this emotional, temporary renunciation of marital life was caused by a display of mutual jealousy among some of the Prophet's wives. In any case, the purport of the above Qur'anic allusion to this incident is not biographical but, rather, intended to bring out a moral lesson applicable to all human situations: namely, the inadmissibility of regarding as forbidden (haram) anything that God has made lawful (halal), even if such an attitude happens to be motivated by the desire to please another person or other persons. Apart from this, it serves to illustrate the fact - repeatedly stressed in the Qur'an - that the Prophet was but a human being, and therefore subject to human emotions and even liable to commit an occasional mistake (which in his case, however, was invariably pointed out to him, and thus rectified, through divine revelation).