Qur'an 33:4 Quranic Arabic v. Classical Arabic and is the Qur'an a Kitab Mubeen? Islam and Adoption! Part 3

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Oct 27, 2021 at 07:53

Dr. Pipes,

This verse is another example of what al-Mufasereen called al-Iltifat where we have three subjects, not related, in the same verse. If you read al-Tabari you will discover that he is doing his best to explain that there is a link between "the two hearts" and "al-Zihar" and the story of Zaid Ibn Haritha (the young man who was adopted by Muhammad and the famous for the story of Muhammad's seduction and then marrying his wife)

This is the last 1/3 of the verse and yes I left the last two sentences out for now:

وَما جَعَلَ أدعِياءَكُمْ أبْناءَكُمْ

The meaning of this part of the verse is not very clear. This can be rendered as: And He did not (notice that Ja'ala is past tense) those that (you) claim are your sons.

al-Tabari corrects the sentence as follows:

ولم يجعل الله من ادّعيت أنه ابنك، وهو ابن غيرك ابنك بدعواك

This can be rendered as: And Allah does not make (notice that Ya'jal present tense is the correct 3rd century grammar) the one that you claimed to be your son, and he is the son of another (man), your son according to you.

And the meaning of this part of the verse is now very clear.

So what is the stance of Islam with regard to "adoption" or تبني? I will leave this very interesting topic to another post.

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