Al-Hijr (The Rock)

70. “They said: ‘Did we not dissuade you from (entertaining) people?”

71. “He (Lot) said: ‘These are my daughters, (you may wed them) if you desire to do so.”

The prophets’ school of thought does not recommend the forbidding of pleasures and repressing of instincts. On the contrary, it offers guidance and mostly provides ways for their control. Therefore, Hadrat-i-Lot (as) offered them guidance and persuaded them to act decently.

Nonetheless, they were so rude and vulgar that they did not have any feelings of shame. On the contrary, they felt that Lot had also to be indebted to them as if he had committed a crime they went on raising objections.

The verse says:

“They said: ‘Did we not dissuade you from (entertaining) people?”

Anyway, Lot, who noticed such rudeness and vulgarity, tried a different method so as to perhaps be able to awaken them from their state of negligence, drunkenness, deviation and scandal. Turning to them, he advised them:

Why do you take a deviant path? If your objective in mind is gratification of your sexual instincts why is it that you do not take the legitimate path and the correct marriage path? These are my daughters; (I am ready to give my consent for them marrying you). In case you decide to perform a correct and decent act, this is the right path.

The verse says:

“He (Lot) said: ‘These are my daughters, (you may wed them) if you desire to do so.”

Lot’s aim was to complete the argument to them, saying that he was ready to preserve the prestige of his guests and to save them from the abyss of corruption by offering his daughters in marriage to them.

Question: Was Lot (as) able to offer his daughters in marriage to the pagans, when he offered such a proposal?

Answer: It may be that the aim of proposing the marriage issue was to make believers out of them; or that, among them, marriage with unbelievers was not legally prohibited at that time.