Surah 66 of 114 · Madinah
سُورَةُ التَّحۡرِيمِ
At-Tahrim The Prohibition
12 verses · revealed in Madinah
The context
At-Tahrim is Medinan and was revealed about an episode inside the Prophet's ﷺ own household. He had made something lawful forbidden to himself in order to please his wives, and the first verse addresses that directly. Accounts of what the thing was differ. The one recorded in Bukhari and Muslim, from Aisha, concerns honey he used to drink at the house of one of his wives, after which two of them agreed to tell him they detected an unpleasant smell on him, so he resolved not to drink it again. Another account, that the matter concerned Mariyah, is reported elsewhere and is disputed. The Qur'an itself does not name it.
The surah's audience widens in stages, and this is what the setting explains. It opens with the Prophet ﷺ, narrows to two of his wives, opens again to all who believe, addresses those who disbelieve on the Day of Judgment, and closes on four women, none of them from this community. The household matter is finished by verse 9 and then dropped. The last three verses answer it from a different direction, by asking what a marriage actually secures and showing that it secures nothing either way.
The name
The name is taken from the verb in the first verse, the making of a thing forbidden. It is an unusual title, since it is drawn not from a command the surah issues but from an act the surah questions, and the act was the Prophet's ﷺ own. That this correction was recited, memorised and transmitted by the community he was leading is part of what the surah tells a reader about the text: nothing was removed from it to protect the man who delivered it.
How it moves
- 1-2A prohibition, and its releaseThe opening question is put to the Prophet ﷺ about forbidding himself what Allah had made lawful in order to please his wives. Verse 2 states that Allah has already ordained the release from such oaths.
- 3-5A confidence passed onSomething told in confidence to one wife reached another. He was informed of it, and disclosed part while passing over part, which the surah records exactly. The two are then called to turn back, since their hearts had inclined, and told what would follow if they backed each other against him.
- 6-7Guard yourselves and your familiesThe address opens to all believers with a command concerning a Fire whose fuel is people and stones and over which stand angels who do not disobey what they are ordered. Verse 7 turns to the deniers on that Day and refuses their excuses in advance.
- 8-9Sincere repentance, and the lightBelievers are called to a repentance described as nasuh, with the promise of a Day on which the Prophet ﷺ and those with him are not disgraced, their light running ahead of them while they ask for it to be completed. Verse 9 instructs the Prophet ﷺ to strive against the deniers and the hypocrites.
- 10-12Four womenTwo examples of disbelief, the wives of Nuh and Lut, who were under two righteous servants and were not helped by it. Two of belief, the wife of Pharaoh, who asked for a house near Allah, and Maryam, who confirmed the words of her Lord.
The themes
A correction kept in the record
The first verse questions a decision of the Prophet ﷺ, and the community that revered him preserved it inside the text he taught them. Nothing about the episode was smoothed away, and the survival of this surah is itself an argument about how the Qur'an reached its readers.
What a household does not secure
The two condemned women were married to prophets. Of the two praised, one was married to the worst tyrant the Qur'an names and the other was not married at all. Proximity settles nothing in either direction.
The family as a charge
Verse 6 makes a person answerable beyond himself, and the verb it uses is protective rather than punitive. What is asked for is guarding, which is why the command does not sit oddly at the close of a domestic quarrel.
Repentance without a definition
The verse calls for tawbah nasuh and leaves it undefined, and commentators supply several definitions. The verse supplies an outcome instead, ending on believers asking for their own light to be completed rather than on a list of conditions.
The heart of it
Slow recitation makes the surah's velocity plain. In the space of a dozen verses it moves from a disagreement about honey to a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, and then back into a house. Anyone who has had a bad week at home will notice that the Qur'an did not treat a domestic episode as beneath its attention, and did not treat it as small either.
Verse 11 is spoken inside a palace by a woman whose husband was killing people for believing what she believed. She asks for a house near Allah before she asks to be saved from Pharaoh. The order of the two requests is what makes the verse hold, since the first thing she wanted was not an escape.
Verses worth knowing
- 66:6The verse that turns a private episode into a general responsibility. It is the standard proof text for a person's duty toward his household and it is worded as protection rather than as authority.
- 66:8The call to a repentance that is sincere, and the du'a at the end of it, that our Lord complete our light for us and forgive us. Worth returning to when repentance has become repetitive.
- 66:10Two women married to prophets, and neither marriage helped them. The clearest statement in the Qur'an that closeness to a righteous person is not a defence.
- 66:11Asiyah's request. The house comes first and the rescue second, and the force of the verse is entirely in that order.
On reciting it
No authentic report establishes a specific merit for reciting At-Tahrim. What is authentically recorded about it is the occasion behind its opening, in Bukhari and Muslim from Aisha, and Umar's long account of the same period, which is also in the two collections. Those establish the setting and not a reward for recitation. The surah's standing rests on the correction it preserves and on the four examples it ends with.
No virtue report
Read beside it
On the shelf
Surahs it travels with
- 33Al-AhzabAl-Ahzab addresses the Prophet's ﷺ wives directly, gives them a choice between the world and Allah with His Messenger, and sets the standard that At-Tahrim then applies to one incident. The two are read together for the reason a rule and a case are.الأحزاب
- 19MaryamAt-Tahrim closes on Maryam in a single verse that assumes the reader knows the rest. Surah Maryam supplies what is assumed, so reading it after this one fills in the woman the last verse only names.مريم