Al-Ahzaab (The Clans)

38. “There is no difficulty to the Prophet (in doing) that which Allah has ordained for him, and such has been the way of Allah with those who have passed before, and the command of Allah is a decree determined.”

This holy verse is as a resolution upon the previous verse indicating that a religious leader must be decisive and does not fear the blames nor does he wait for the consent of others. So, to complete the former discussions, this verse says:

“There is no difficulty to the Prophet (in doing) that which Allah has ordained for him…”

Wherever Allah commands him to do something, he must put it in action without any hesitation and nothing is permissible to be considered against it.

In carrying out the commands of Allah (s.w.t.), the heavenly leaders never must obey the words of others, or consider the political circumstances and the wrong customs existing in the environment. It may happen that that command is for breaking these very wrong conditions and wiping out the existing ugly innovations.

According to Qur’anic sentence which says:

“…do not fear the scorn of any blamer…”1 ,

they must fulfil the command of Allah without any fear from the blames and tumults.

In principle, if we want to wait to attract the consent and pleasure of everybody in order to carry out the command of Allah, such a thing is impossible. There are some groups of people who may be pleased only when we submit to their desires and that we follow their school.

The Qur’an says:

“For, never will the Jews be pleased with you nor the Christians unless you follow their religion…”2

And concerning the verse under discussion the matter was as such, since, as we said before, the marriage of the Prophet (S) with Zaynab, in the common thought of the people in that environment, consisted of two objects: one was marriage with ‘the wife of the adopted son’ which was like the marriage with the wife of a real son in their view; and this was an innovation which had to be broken out.

The other was the marriage of a personality such as the Prophet (S) with the divorced wife of a manumitted slave, which was a blemish and vice among those people, because it would make the Prophet (S) in a row with a slave.

This wrong culture should be dismissed, too, and some humane values might substitute it, and suitability of two spouses must be fixed only on the base of faith, Islam, and piety.

In principle, breaking the traditions and rooting out the superstitious and none-humane customs is always accompanied with oppositions, and the Divine prophets must never heed them. Therefore, in the next sentences, the verse implies that this way of treatment of Allah (s.w.t.) had been current for the prophets of the former nations and you are not the only one who is faced with such a difficulty.

The verse continues:

“…and such has been the way of Allah with those who have passed before…”

For fixing the decisiveness in such fundamental matters, at the end of the verse, it says:

“…and the command of Allah is a decree determined.” The application of the sentence: “a decree determined” may refer to the certainty of Allah’s command, or it may refer to observing wisdom and interest in it, but the more suitable case for this verse is that both meanings might be used for it. That is, the command of Allah is both accurate and seriously indispensable.

It is interesting that we study in history that for the marriage with Zaynab, the Prophet of Allah (S) invited people for eating food so generally and vastly that he had not done it for any one of his wives.¹

As if he wanted to show by this action that he would never be terrified by the superstitious traditions of his environment, but on the contrary, he boasted for performing this command of Allah. Moreover, by this way, he wanted to make the ears all over Arabia hear this breaking the pagan tradition.