Surah an-Nisa' (Women ) 4 : 26

Overview (Verses 26 - 28)

What God Desires for Human Beings
 
God wants to make all this clear to you and to guide you in the [righteous] ways of life of those who have preceded you, and to turn to you in His mercy. God is All-Knowing, Wise. And God wants to turn to you in His mercy, while those who follow their lusts want you to go very far astray. God wants to lighten your burdens; for man has been created weak. (Verses 26- 28)
 
These verses provide a perfect and comprehensive comment on the detailed legislation provided by Islam for the family. It is through this legislation that Islamic society is elevated psychologically, morally and socially to a very high, clean and healthy summit. The comment given in these verses reveals to the Muslim community the truth of what God wants for it by His prescription of these laws and regulations. At the same time, the aims of those who follow their lusts are also revealed.
 
God treats His servants with grace and reveals to them what lies behind His legislation, explaining to them the benefits they will reap as a result of implementing it. It is a gesture of honour, which God does to His servants by speaking thus to them: “God wants to make all this clear to you.” He wants you to understand His wisdom and reflect on it with open eyes and minds. There is nothing enigmatic about His legislation. It is not made arbitrarily. Good servants of God as they Oil are, Muslims deserve to have this wisdom explained to them. This is an honour, which is appreciated only by those who understand the true nature of Godhead and what it means to be a servant of God.
 
“God wants to make all this clear to you and to guide you in the [righteous] ways of lift of those who have preceded you.” (Verse 26) This method of life is the one that God has decreed for all believers. Its principles, aims and objectives are the same. It is designed for believers in all generations. It is in this sense that they constitute a single nation. Hence, the Qur’ān groups together those who have received true guidance in all generations and localities. This statement helps every Muslim to recognise his roots, the nation to which he belongs and the method he is required to follow. He is one of the faithful who are joined together despite differences of time, place, race and nationality by the bond of faith and a distinctive way of life to which they all subscribe.
 
“And to turn to you in His mercy.” God, then, makes things clear and guides His servants in the traditions of those who have preceded them as a gesture of mercy that He extends to them. He takes them by the hand so that they can turn to Him in repentance. Thus, He facilitates their way for them and helps them proceed along that easy path.
 
“God is All-Knowing, Wise.” These directives and legal provisions are, then, derived from His knowledge and wisdom. He knows people’s hearts and souls, and knows what is suitable for them. He has exercised His wisdom in defining their constitution for them and shown them how to implement it.
 
“And God wants to turn to you in His mercy, while those who follow their lusts want you to go very far astray.” (Verse 27) This short verse reveals the truth of what God wants for people when He established the method of life that He wants them to follow and the truth of what those who follow their lusts, straying far away from God’s constitution, want for them. There is only one way of life that combines seriousness with commitment. All other methods merely follow passions and lusts, and constitute deviation and transgression.
 
What does God, then, want for people when He makes things clear for them and enacts His legislation for them? He simply wants to turn to them in His mercy. He wants to guide them so that they can avoid slips. He wants to help them elevate themselves to the high standards they are worthy of.
 
And what do those who follow their lusts and tempt people with methods and creeds that God has not sanctioned want for them? They indeed want them to go far astray from the straight path, the clear method and the route to elevation.
 
What about this particular area which the preceding passage regulates, namely, family relations, purity of society, and the only healthy and acceptable way through which men and women may be joined together, to the exclusion of all other methods? In this particular area, what does God want for people and what do those who follow their lusts want?
 
What God wants has been explained by the preceding verses which add purity and ease to a perfect system which assures the Muslim community of beneficial results. Those who follow their lusts want to shed all inhibitions so that desires are let loose, unrestricted by any religious, moral or social values. They want uninhibited promiscuity with all that it leads to of instability, spiritual disorder, family chaos and total disregard of honour. They want human beings to be like animals, so that males can have their females with nothing to check them. All this corruption and destruction is preached in the name of freedom. It is simply a false name given to lust and caprice.
 
It is against this evil that God warns the believers when He tells them that those who follow their lusts want them to go very far astray. Indeed, they spare no effort to achieve their purpose of forcing the Muslim community to sink back into the immorality of ignorance, after they have elevated themselves far above it through following the Islamic way of life. It is towards the same end that certain writers and institutions try hard to push our community when they concentrate their aims at removing all social barriers which stand in the way of total promiscuity. This is a dreadful end from which there can be no protection except through the implementation of the Divine way of life by those who truly believe in God.
 
Man’s Burden Made Light
 
The final word in this comment touches on man’s weakness and the mercy God shows him by giving him a perfect law which lightens his burden and which removes all causes of harm and affliction from him: “God wants to lighten your burdens; for man has been created weak.” (Verse 28)
 
Within the area addressed by the preceding verses and regulated by the directives and legal provisions they contain, the Divine wish to lighten man’s burden is clearly apparent. Natural desires are recognised and given a proper, healthy and fruitful method of satisfaction. God neither charges His servants with an unreasonable suppression of these desires, nor does He allow them to run loose after their pleasure without checks and controls. More generally, God’s wish to make things easy for man appears very clearly in the constitution He has laid down for human life which takes into consideration man’s nature, ability and real needs. It taps all man’s constructive energy, protecting it against wasteful use.
 
Many people assume that adherence to the Divine method, especially in connection with the relationships between men and women, constitutes a heavy burden. They further claim that shedding all inhibitions to satisfy desires freely ensures ease and comfort. This is utter delusion. Seeking only one’s own pleasure in every pursuit and removing the element of duty altogether, confining the objective of human sexual relations to that of its equivalent in the animal world, and removing all moral checks and social duties which influence relations between men and women may appear to give man ease and comfort. In reality, however, they weigh heavily upon man and increase his burden. Their consequences on society, and indeed on every individual, are harmful, wasteful, and destructive. A glance at the situation which prevails in societies that have emancipated themselves and shed the constraints of religion, morality and modesty is enough to make hearts shudder.
 
Uncontrolled sexual relationships were the major factor that led to the collapse of ancient civilisations, including those of Athens, Rome, and Persia. The same factor is now working for the destruction of Western civilisation. Those effects have appeared first in France and they can be clearly seen now in America, Sweden, England and other Western civilised countries. France is foremost because she took the lead in shedding moral inhibitions. She succumbed in every war she fought since 1870. All indications are that France is moving fast towards total collapse.
 
In the first place, the French people’s sexual indulgence has gradually resulted in the loss of their physical strength. Ever-present emotional situations have broken down their power of resistance. Craze for sexual pleasures has left them with little or no forbearance, and the prevalence of venereal diseases has affected their national health fatally. Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, after every couple of years or so, the French military authorities have had to lower standards of physical fitness for new entrants, because young men coming up to the previous standards have day by day become rarer. This measure — with the accuracy of a thermometer — precisely indicates how fast has the French nation been losing its physical strength. Venereal diseases are a major cause of its decline. During the first two years of World War I, the number of French soldiers who had to be hospitalised on account of syphilis was estimated at 75,000. In a garrison town of average importance, 242 soldiers were found suffering from this disease simultaneously. Imagine for a while the predicament in which the French nation was involved. On the one hand, it was facing a life and death situation and stood badly in need of the sincerest effort by every single soldier for its survival: each franc was precious, each second of time and each ounce of energy valuable, and all possible resources were called for in national defence. And on the other, thousands of young men lay useless for months together on account of sexual dissipation, and were thus becoming instrumental in squandering national wealth and resources on treatment at such a critical time.
 
According to Dr. Leredde, a French specialist, about 30,000 deaths are caused every year in France by syphilis and its immediate or ultimate results, which is the second biggest cause of death after tuberculosis. And syphilis is not the only venereal disease.
 
The population of France has shown a serious downward tendency. Free sex and easy abortion have left little room for starting a family, and shouldering the responsibility for illegitimate children born after a brief temporary relationship. Hence, the number of marriages decreases, fewer children are born and France moves fast into the abyss.
 
Hardly 7 or 8 per thousand in France enter wedlock annually. This low percentage clearly indicates that there are big chunks of French population that are unmarried. Among the few married ones there are even fewer who live chaste or marry with a view to living a morally clean life. Apart from this, they have all sorts of motives while entering matrimony, one common motive being to legitimise the child born or conceived before marriage. Paul Bureau writes that it has almost become a custom among the French working classes that a woman, before marriage, must have the assurance of her would-be husband to recognise a child who is not his. In 1917, a woman stated before a Civil Tribunal of the Seine:
 
By these present I declare to my husband that in our union I have only the object of legitimising the children born of our `free’ union, ... and not that of resuming our life together. I leave him on the day of our marriage at 5.30 p.m., in order to escape from conjugal duties which I have no intention of fulfilling. I give him by these present a deed of separation, to serve towards what is necessary in order to obtain a divorce.
 
The Principal of a great college in Paris told Paul Bureau:
 
At the present time, many young men see in marriage nothing but the means of securing a mistress at home... For ten or twelve years they have roved a little in all directions, tasting various forms of licentiousness in various degrees. A day comes when they tire of this restless and irregular life; they take a lawful wife, convinced that with her will be combined the advantages of safety and tranquillity with those of licentiousness modified indeed but still sufficient and refined, to suit a less exacting appetite.
 
These are the reasons for the decline of France and her defeat in every recent war. These have been the seed of France’s eclipse and will be the reason for her further gradual decline. It may appear that God’s law works very slowly but it never fails.
 
All this is part of what humanity, in our present day state of ignorance, has to bear as a result of its following the dictates of those who insist on following carnal desires and who adamantly refuse to follow the way of life God has chosen for mankind. That is a way of life characterised by its easy implementation, reducing the human burden, protecting human society against immorality, leading man along a safe and secure course, that ensures purity, cleanliness and repentance of any slip into sin. “God wants to lighten your burdens; for man has been created weak.” (Verse 28)