hafsa and maria

Ma’arifulul-Qur’an – Maulana Muhammad Shaffi

Cause of Revelation
It is recorded in Sahih of Bukhari and in other collection of Ahadith, on the authority of Sayyidah A’ishah, that it was a daily practice of the Messenger of Allah to visit each of his wives after asr prayer for a short time inquiring about their welfare. Once he visited Sayyidah Zainab and spent more time with her than normal and had some honey offered by her. Sayydah A’ishah says: ‘I developed some envy and in consultation with Hafsah decided that when the Messenger of Allah would visit any one of use, she should say to him ‘you have had Maghafir’, (a herb that resembled gum with a slightly unpleasant smell.)’ They executed their plan. The Messenger of Allah said: ‘I have not had any Maghafir. I only had some honey.’ The Holy wife said: ‘It is possible that the honeybee might have sat on the Maghfur shrub and the drank the Nectar. The Messenger of Allah, because of his natural dislike for unpleasant odour, swore and promised not to take honey any more. However, he did not want the feelings of Sayydah Zainab to be hurt, and therefore he said to his wife that the incident should be kept secret and should not be recounted to anyone else. But she told about it to another wife.
Some reports say that it was ay the house of Sayyidah Hafsah that he was served with honey, and that the wives who planned were Sayyidah A’ishah, Saudah and Safiyyah. Other reports recount the incident in other ways. It is possible that any incidents of similar nature might have taken place ad these verses were revealed after them [Bayan-ul-Quran].

In brief, these verses tell is that the Messenger of Allah banned a lawful thing [honey] on himself by swearing an oath. If such an act is done for a genuine need or expedience, [maslahah], it is permissible; it is not a sin. But the incident does not show that there was no such need for him to have the trouble of banning a lawful thing on himself. He had done this for the pleasure of his holy wives. In such circumstances, it was not necessary for him to have pleased them. Therefore, the verse compassionately addresses the Holy Prophet… (O Prophet, why do you ban (on yourself) something that Allah has made lawful for you, seeking the pleasure of your wives? And Allah is Most-forgiving, Very Merciful…66:1) According to the principles of general stylistics, the Qur’an does not dress the Holy Prophet by his name but by his Prophetic title thus: ‘O Prophet’ which is his special honour. Although this is a loving question posed by way of compassion, it could have created the misunderstanding that he has committed major error and he is being questioned about it. The concluding phrase allays this suspicion:… meaning that even if it would have been a sin (for the sake of argument), then Allah is Most-Forgiving, Very Merciful.’ [1] by DISCOVER THE TRUTH

  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).

Lit., "he turned aside from [or "avoided"] some of it". There is no reliable Tradition as to the subject of that confidential information. Some of the early commentators, however, connect it with the Prophet's veiled prediction that Abu Bakr and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab would succeed him as leaders of the Muslim community; the recipient of the information is said to have been Hafsah, the daughter of 'Umar, and the one to whom she disclosed it, 'A'ishah, the daughter of Abu Bakr (Baghawi, on the authority of Ibn'Abbas and Al-Kalbi; also Zamakhshari). If this interpretation is correct, it would explain why the Prophet "acquainted [others] with some of it and passed over some of it": for, once his confidential prediction had been divulged, he saw no point in withholding it any longer from the community; nevertheless, he alluded to it in deliberately vague terms - possibly in order not to give to the succession of Abu Bakr and 'Umar the appearance of an "apostolic sanction" but to leave it, rather, to a free decision of the community in pursuance of the Qur'anic principle amruhum shura baynahum (see 42:38 ).

This allusion, together with the fact that the Prophet did not divorce any of his wives, as well as the purely hypothetical formulation of this passage, shows that it is meant to be an indirect admonition to the Prophet's wives, who, despite their occasional shortcomings - unavoidable in human beings - did possess the virtues referred to above. On a wider plane, it seems to be an admonition to all believers, men and women alike: and this explains the subsequent change in the discourse. by muhammad asad 

 The opening verses of Sūrat al-Taḥrīm describe an incident in which the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited himself from something in order to please his wives. The classical commentators provide two opinions: one is strong and authentic, and the other is weaker and provokes controversy.

It has been authentically narrated on the authority of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, that the Prophet prohibited himself from drinking honey to please his wives. Aisha and Hafsa were upset that the Prophet was spending more time with his wife Zainab on account of a honey drink she would serve him, so they secretly agreed to pretend to be offended by the odor. The Prophet did not want to offend his wives, so he swore an oath never to drink it again. Allah revealed the verses telling the Prophet not to prohibit what is lawful.

Aisha reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, would spend time with his wife Zainab bint Jahsh and he would drink a concoction of honey. Hafsa and I agreed that whomever the Prophet visited first, we would say, “I notice a strong odor of mimosa gum on you.” The Prophet visited one of them and she said this to him, so the Prophet said:

بَلْ شَرِبْتُ عَسَلًا عِنْدَ زَيْنَبَ بِنْتِ جَحْشٍ وَلَنْ أَعُودَ لَهُ

I have taken a honey drink at Zainab’s house and I will not do it again.

 The verse was revealed

لِمَ تُحَرِّمُ مَا أَحَلَّ اللَّهُ لَكَ

Why do you forbid yourself from what Allah has made lawful for you? (66:1)

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1474, Grade: Sahih

The authenticity of this narration is agreed upon according to Al-Bukhari and Muslim. Al-Bukhari included it in his explanation of Sūrat al-Taḥrīm. Moreover, Aisha was the direct witness about whom the verses speak, so she would know best what really happened.

An alternative explanation of the passage has been narrated by others. In this version, the Prophet prohibits himself from being intimate with his concubine wife to please his other wives. In particular, it is alleged that Hafsa became upset when the Prophet was intimate with Maria the Copt in her house and on her bed, saying:

أَيْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ فِي بَيْتِي وَعَلَى فِرَاشِي

O Messenger of Allah, in my house and on my bed?

Source: Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī 66:1

This narration comes on the authority of Zaid ibn Aslam who was from the third generation and not a witness to the events in question. Hence, Ibn Hajar rules that this narrations’s chain of authorities is incomplete (mursal) in Fatḥ al-Bārī 9/288. For this reason, the explanation was not universally agreed upon by the classical commentators.

Al-Qurtubi mentions first the story of Aisha followed by narrations that include Maria, then he says:

أَصَحُّ هَذِهِ الْأَقْوَالِ أَوَّلُهَا وَأَضْعَفُهَا أَوْسَطُهَا

The most correct of these opinions is the first of them, and the weaker of them are the others.

Source: Tafsīr al-Qurṭubī 66:1

 n other words, the authentic explanation is the one given by Aisha and the stories that include Maria are weak by comparison.

Ibn Al-Arabi concludes:

وَإِنَّمَا الصَّحِيحُ أَنَّهُ كَانَ فِي الْعَسَلِ وَأَنَّهُ شَرِبَهُ عِنْدَ زَيْنَبَ وَتَظَاهَرَتْ عَلَيْهِ عَائِشَةُ وَحَفْصَةُ فِيهِ وَجَرَى مَا جَرَى فَحَلَفَ أَلَّا يَشْرَبَهُ وَأَسَرَّ ذَلِكَ وَنَزَلَتْ الْآيَةُ فِي الْجَمِيعِ

Indeed, the only authentic narration is that it was about honey, that the Prophet drank it with Zainab, and Aisha and Hafsa pretended to be offended by it. There occurred what occurred and the Prophet made an oath never to drink it again. He confided that to his wife and the verse was revealed regarding all of them.

Source: Aḥkām al-Qur’ān 66:1

In sum, the story about the dispute between Hafsa, Maria, and the Prophet does not have a strong basis in Islam. It is part of the apocryphal traditions that are of varying and questionable degrees of authenticity. Rather, the strongest explanation of the passage, passed down by the direct witness Aisha through an unbroken chain of authorities, is that the verses were revealed about a honey drink.(by faith in allah )

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• maria the copt***