Surah al-Hajj
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

[Surah al-Hajj (22): Verse 1]
In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

“O mankind, fear your Lord. Indeed, the convulsion of the Hour is a tremendous thing.” (1)

A murdiʿ is a woman who has a child whom she breastfeeds, whereas a murdiʿa is a woman who has placed her breast in the infant’s mouth.

Accordingly, in His words, exalted is He:

“On the Day you see it, every nursing woman will be distracted from the child she is nursing,”

the word murdiʿa is more emphatic in this context than murdiʿ. A woman may be distracted from her infant when the infant is not actually suckling. But once the infant has taken the breast and she is occupied with nursing, she will be distracted from her child only by something she considers more momentous than nursing.

Reflect—may Allah have mercy on you—on the wondrous subtlety in His choosing, glorified be He, the expression dhāt haml (a woman carrying a pregnancy), rather than “every pregnant woman.” The word hāmil (pregnant) may be applied to a woman who is ready to conceive, or to one in the earliest stages of pregnancy. But dhāt haml applies only to a woman whose pregnancy has become apparent and whose child can be delivered, whether fully formed or as a miscarriage. This is like the expression dhāt walad (a woman with a child).