4. An-Nisaa

If you avoid the grave sins that are forbidden you those for which the threat of punishment has been prescribed like murder fornication or theft — according to Ibn ‘Abbās these number as much as seven hundred — We will absolve you of your minor evil deeds on account of your acts of obedience and admit you by an honourable gate read mudkhalan or madkhalan that is by an honourable admittance or location namely Paradise.

Do not covet that in which God has preferred some of you above others in the way of worldly affairs or religion lest it lead to mutual envy and hatred. To men a share from a reward for what they have earned for their acts in the struggle and so on and to women a share from what they have earned by way of being obedient to their spouses and guarding their private parts this was revealed when Umm Salama said ‘Would that we were men so that we could join the struggle and receive the reward they receive!’ And ask read wa-s’alū or wa-salū God of His bounty what you need and He will give it to you; God is ever Knower of all things including where merit is deserved and that for which you ask.

Men are in charge of they have authority over women disciplining them and keeping them in check because of that with which God has preferred the one over the other that is because God has given them the advantage over women in knowledge reason authority and otherwise and because of what they expend on them the women of their property. Therefore righteous women among them are obedient to their husbands guarding in the unseen that is guarding their private parts and otherwise during their spouses’ absence because of what God has guarded for them when He enjoined their male spouses to look after them well. And those you fear may be rebellious disobedient to you when such signs appear admonish them make them fear God and share not beds with them retire to other beds if they manifest such disobedience and strike them but not violently if they refuse to desist from their rebellion after leaving them in separate beds. If they then obey you in what is desired from them do not seek a way against them a reason to strike them unjustly. God is ever High Great so beware of Him lest He punish you for treating them unjustly.

And if you fear become aware of a breach a dispute between the two the married couple the genitive construction shiqāqa baynihimā ‘any breach between the two’ is for a range of alternatives in other words shiqāqan baynihimā is the normal construction send forth for them with their consent an arbiter a just man from his folk his kinsmen and an arbiter from her folk the husband delegates to his arbiter the matter of divorce or the acceptance of compensation in its place while she delegates to her arbiter the matter of separation. The two arbiters do their best and bid the one guilty of the injustice to desist or they suggest separation if they see fit. God exalted be He says if they the two arbiters desire to set things right God will grant them the married couple success determining for them what constitutes an act of obedience be it reconciliation or separation. Surely God is ever Knower of everything Aware of what is hidden and what is manifested.

And worship God declare His Oneness and associate nothing with Him. Be kind to parents being dutiful and gentle-mannered and near kindred and to orphans and to the needy and to the neighbour who is near to you in terms of physical vicinity or kinship and to the neighbour who is a stranger the one far from you in terms of physical vicinity or kinship; and to the friend at your side a travelling companion or a colleague at work and it is also said one’s wife; and to the wayfarer the one cut off during a journey and to what your right hands own of bondsmen. Surely God loves not the conceited the arrogant and the boastful the one who boasts before people of what he has been given.

Those alladhīna the subject who are niggardly in their duty and bid other people to be niggardly in the same and conceal what God has bestowed upon them of His bounty in the way of knowledge and property these are the Jews the predicate of the said subject is an implied lahum wa‘īdun shadīd ‘for them there is a promise of severe punishment’. And We have prepared for those that disbelieve in this and other matters a humbling chastisement one of humiliation.

And those wa’lladhīna a supplement to the previous alladhīna ‘those’ who expend of their substance to show off to people to be seen of them and believe not in God and the Last Day the likes of the hypocrites and the Meccans. Whoever has Satan for a comrade for a companion whose command he follows as these do then an evil comrade has he.

And what burden is on them if they were to believe in God and the Last Day and expend of what God has provided them? that is to say what harm would this cause them? In other words there is no harm therein. Rather harm lies in what they follow the interrogative is meant as a disavowal; the law of law āmanū ‘if they were to believe’ conveys the sense of the verbal noun sc. mādhā ‘alayhim īmānuhum ‘what burden would their belief be upon them?’. God is ever Aware of them and will requite them for what they have done.

Surely God shall not wrong anyone so much as the weight of an atom the weight of the smallest ant by diminishing thereby a person’s good deeds or increase thereby his evil deeds; and if it the atom be a good deed in taku hasanatan ‘if it be a good deed’ is also read in taku hasanatun in which case the kāna construction is syntactically complete from a believer He will double it yudā‘ifuhā also read yuda‘‘ifuhā from ten times up to more than seven hundred times and give from Himself in addition to the doubling a great wage that no one can estimate.