Quranic Re-reading of "Men's Being Qawwām over Women" in the Verse 34 of Surah Al-Nisāʾ

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Marjaneh Fathi Torghabeh ¹
• Abbas Esmaeelizadeh ²
• Gholamreza Raeisian ²

¹ Ph.D. Graduate, Department of Quran and Hadith Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Quran and Hadith Studies, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

10.22067/jquran.2024.84549.1614

Abstract

"Men's being qawwām over women" in verse 34 of Surah al-Nisāʾ is one of the Quranic issues that many doubts and questions have been raised about its efficiency. So, despite the trans-historicity of all verses of the Quran, some intellectuals have considered this verse as historical, exclusive to the revelation age, or changeable in the recent era. It is clear that such a view about the verse and abrogating its decree is contrary to the eternity and pre-eternity of all teachings of the Holy Quran. By using a descriptive-analytical method in this study it has been shown that misunderstandings of the Quranologists about the verse and interpreting it as the superiority of men over women have been caused by subordinating the understanding of the verse to Occasions of the Revelation (Asbābi nuzūl) narrations. Also. By using other verses and relying on the Quran itself, it was found that in the verse, Allah orders men with great emphasis to be protectors and supporters of women; it is due to their existential differences as well as their greater properties originating from the difference in the revealed law for men and women's share of inherence. As these reasons are unchangeable and eternal, the order of being qawwām will be eternal and useable forever.

Keywords

• Men's "being qawwām" over the woman
• Superiority of men over women
• Men's protecting role
• Existential differences
• Differences in the Revealed law

Main Subjects

• Qurʾanic Exegesis and its methods

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©2024 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

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