Surah 58. Al-Mujadilah, Ayah 4

I.e., in the manner prescribed for fasting during the month of Ramadan (see {2:183-187}). As regards the phrase "he who does not find the wherewithal (lam yajid)", it may indicate either a lack of financial means or the impossibility of finding anyone else who could be redeemed from factual or figurative bondage (see note [5] above). According to many Islamic scholars of our times (e.g., Rashid Rida', commenting on 4:92 ), this relates, in the first instance, to circumstances in which "slavery will have been abolished in accordance with the aim of Islam" (Manar V, 337).

Or, alternatively, one needy person for sixty days. The inability to fast for two consecutive months may be due either to ill-health or to really compelling external circumstances (for instance, the necessity of performing labours which require great physical and/or mental vigour and alertness).

Sc., "by showing that you have renounced the practices of the Time of Ignorance" (Razi). In other words, the pronouncement of zihar is not to be considered a divorce, as was the case in pre-Islamic times, but solely as a reprehensible act which must be atoned for by a sacrifice.

Cf. iv. 92. The penalty is: to get a slave his freedom, whether it is your own slave or you purchase his freedom from another; if that is not possible, to fast for two months consecutively (in the manner of the Ramadhan fast); if that is not possible, to feed sixty poor. See next note.

There is a great deal of learned argument among the jurists as to the precise requirements of Canon Law under the term "feeding" the indigent. For example, it is laid down that half a Sa' of wheat or a full Sa' of dates or their equivalent in money would fulfil the requirements, a Sa' being a measure corresponding roughly to about 9 lbs. of wheat in weight. Others hold that a Mudd measure equivalent to about 2 1/4 lbs. would be sufficient. This would certainly be nearer the daily ration of a man. It is better to take the spirit of the text in its plain simplicity, and say that an indigent man should be given enough to eat for two meals a day. The sixty indigent ones fed for a day would be equivalent to a single individual fed for sixty days, or two for thirty days, and so on. But there is no need to go into minutiae in such matters.

These penalties in the alternative are prescribed, that we may show our repentance and Faith and our renunciation of "iniquity and falsehood" (verse 2 above), whatever our circumstances may be.