Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And His wives are their mothers”

He said: ... The wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) are the mothers of the believers. Look at the difference in the expression. He did not say the Prophet is a father to the believers, but that his wives are their mothers. He said: This is stronger than a father; your father is not closer to you than you are to yourself, but the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is closer to you than you are to yourself. This is greater than his saying: And because of this guardianship, where he is closer to you than you are to yourself, his wives became mothers to us, whether from their side or from our side. I mean, do they look at us as a mother looks at her children, or do we look at them as mothers look at their children, or both? Both. We know that the mothers of the believers (may Allah be pleased with them), with regard to the Ummah of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), the Ummah of response, look at this Ummah as a mother looks at her children. And it is obligatory for us to look at them as we look at mothers, because they are the wives of the one who is closer to us than we are to ourselves, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Therefore, it is fitting that they be in the position of mothers in terms of respect, honor, defending them, and not exposing them to what has occurred of disobedience to them, whether out of jealousy or otherwise. As you know, among wives there is jealousy. A woman may make a mistake driven by jealousy, and jealousy is something that controls a person and something that does not control him, just as anger controls a person and does not control him. This is what happened in the case of His saying, the Exalted: [Al-Tahrim: 4]. In such cases, we must defend them to the best of our ability. Those who took such an issue as an opening to attack the wives of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) undoubtedly, whoever attacks the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), his attack does not stop with them but extends to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). I ask you: if a man took as his wives women of the worst kind, would that be praise for him or a defect? It is a defect without a doubt. So whoever defects in one of the mothers of the believers, his defect extends to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) without a doubt, especially if the defect relates to honor and purity. Therefore, the correct opinion among the scholars is that whoever accuses one of the mothers of the believers of zina becomes a disbeliever, a disbelief that takes him out of the religion. As for Aisha, if he accuses her of what Allah has cleared her of, there is no doubt in his disbelief because he is denying the Qur'an. As for the others, if he accuses one of them of zina, he is also denying the Qur'an from another angle. Allah the Exalted says: [Al-Nur: 26]. And there is no doubt that zina, may Allah protect us from it, is impurity. So if you describe one of the mothers of the believers with zina, even if it is not Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), you have described the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with impurity. We ask Allah for safety. In that case, the person becomes a disbeliever without a doubt. The correct opinion, held by the most precise scholars, is that whoever accuses one of the mothers of the believers becomes a disbeliever, a disbelief that takes him out of the religion. Likewise, whoever accuses the wives of the other prophets becomes a disbeliever because of the verse I mentioned, to the end of the verse.