Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And [recall] when you said to the one upon whom Allah had bestowed favor and you had bestowed favor, ‘Hold onto your wife and fear Allah’”

He said: “So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) married her to Zayd, and then after a while his gaze fell upon her, and love for her reached his heart, while in Zayd’s heart was a dislike for her. Then he said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), ‘I wish to part with her.’ So he said:

Hold onto your wife

أمسك عليك زوجك

As Allah the Exalted said:

And [remember, O Muhammad], when you said to the one on whom Allah bestowed favor

وَإِذْ تَقُولُ لِلَّذِي أَنْعَمَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ

[Al-Ahzab: 37]” This is what the author (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned, citing it from some of the exegetes from the Salaf and the Khalaf. But it is, as Ibn Kathir said, “opinions that a person should turn away from”, because they are false opinions that do not befit the station of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). For if a person reads the story, he imagines that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was a lover among lovers. How is this false story like the story of Dawud (peace be upon him) that they mentioned, where Dawud asked one of his soldiers to marry his wife, but he refused, so he schemed against him. Look, what was the scheme? What was the scheme? He said, “We will send him out with the army to be killed, so I can marry his wife.” Is it possible that this would happen to a prophet from the prophets of Allah? Absolutely not. If someone said this happened to one of the common people, it would be said, “How unjust and how ignorant is this man.” So how could it happen to a prophet from the prophets of Allah? Can anyone imagine that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was in love with this woman? Note that some people, even some of the exegetes, and may Allah protect us from that, have used this term, saying, “The Messenger was in love with the woman Zaynab.” But this is a false statement. And it will come, if Allah wills, in the discussion of the exegesis of the verse, an explanation of the meaning of the verse, and that its meaning is bright and clear. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not say to him: And that he concealed his love for her, because Allah said in the same verse: So Allah made it clear that He would reveal what he had concealed in his heart. If what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had concealed in his heart was love, Allah would have revealed it. But what did Allah reveal? What Allah revealed was his marriage to her; He married her to him. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) concealed in his heart what Allah informed him that he would marry her, without there being any love or relationship. But the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) knew, by what Allah informed him, that he would marry her. So when this man came to consult him, he said to him: Do not divorce the woman. So why did Allah rebuke His Messenger? Why did He say to him, “Fear Allah and hold onto her,” when He knew that Allah the Exalted would marry him to her? So the matter is clear, there is no problem in it. But the problem is that some of the exegetes take from some without verification and without there being caution in the matter. Even some people excused it and said, “That a person’s love for a woman, even if she is with another husband, is a matter that is not denied. What is denied is that he tries to reach this woman by an unlawful path. But that love for a woman who is with a husband falls into his heart, there is no harm in it, and it is a natural matter that the nature and disposition may lead to.” And this, although the matter requires looking into this statement, which is that a person’s love for another’s wife is either love for the type or love for the person. If it is love for the type, then this is permissible. Or not? Permissible. I mean, by “type” I mean the desire, meaning the type of this kind of women; this is what is meant by my saying “type.” If it is love for the type, meaning it means he desires such a woman, then there is no harm in it. And a person always, if he hears, for example, from a man that a woman is righteous, obedient, and guarding what is unseen by what Allah has preserved, he loves her and loves to have one like her. But if it is a personal love, then in my opinion there is a consideration regarding the permissibility of it, and a person must, if his heart becomes attached to a woman with a personal attachment or personal love, must try to get rid of it, because it is a problem. Love is actually attractive; love is like iron that attracts a person. So if his heart becomes attached to a woman, the most likely thing is that he will try to reach her. If she is not married, he may propose to her. And if she is married, it is a problem. So what I see in this matter is that if he loves her with a love of type, meaning he loves the type of this woman, then there is no doubt that there is no obstacle and no harm occurs in it. But if he loves her with a personal love, then the matter is serious.
The student: ...?
The Shaykh: Because he loves this woman herself, yes, this woman, for example, he saw her with her husband that she is fulfilling what is required, and he loved her personally.
The author says: “It is in the accusative case with ‘remember’” Where is ‘remember’? It is omitted. It is in the accusative case with ‘remember’ omitted, meaning, “Remember, O Muhammad, when you said to the one upon whom He bestowed favor…” to the end of it. Remember this statement so that you are prepared for what will be cast upon you of admonition, because Allah the Exalted’s admonition in this verse is a great admonition, until Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said: “If Muhammad had been concealing what was revealed to him, he would have concealed this verse” As you will see, by Islam by manumission. Allah the Mighty and Majestic made it clear that this man, whose name was obscured here and then clarified later, has two favors. The first favor is from Allah, and the second is from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And here He said: So He brought the conjunction ‘wa’ (and) which indicates sharing, even though this is not from the category of shirk (associating partners with Allah) or not from the category of making partners, so that we say it is permissible to share or associate Allah with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Rather, here it is from the category of favor and giving and grace. So how did He combine the favor of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the favor of Allah with the conjunction ‘wa’ which indicates sharing? So the answer is that we say He combined them with the conjunction ‘wa’ which indicates sharing because the two favors are different. So the first favor is by what? By Islam, and the second favor from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is by manumission. So when the two favors differed, the conjunction ‘wa’ did not indicate sharing because sharing between two different things is impossible. “By manumission, and he was Zayd ibn Harithah. He was from the captives of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) bought him before the mission and manumitted him and adopted him.” It is well known that Zayd ibn Harithah (may Allah be pleased with him) was a slave of Khadijah, and she gifted him to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). This is what is known in the biographies. And whoever it was, Zayd ibn Harithah was a slave of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), then he manumitted him and adopted him. He also raised his morale by making him his son, and he was called Zayd ibn Muhammad, until Allah abrogated that in His saying: [Al-Ahzab: 40] And in His saying: [Al-Ahzab: 4] You say: regarding the matter of her divorce And the one meant by it is Zaynab bint Jahsh (may Allah be pleased with her). And Zayd had married her by the advice of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), so he came to consult about her divorce, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: Meaning, do not divorce her. And he ordered him to fear Allah as an incentive for him to hold onto her, even though the man did not commit a sin, because divorce is permissible for men. But it is from the category of incentivizing him to hold onto her. And some of the exegetes said that he, meaning Zayd ibn Harithah, mentioned a defect in Zaynab, so the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: Meaning, do not describe her with a defect. And the meaning is not “fear Allah, do not divorce her,” because the original ruling regarding divorce is that it is permissible.