“When you divorce women and they have completed their waiting period, do not prevent them from marrying their former husbands if they mutually agree in a fair manner. This is enjoined upon whoever among you believes in Allah and the Last Day. That is better for you and purer. Allah knows, whereas you do not know.” (232)
Regarding His saying, “When you divorce women and they have completed their waiting period”: this was revealed concerning Jamīlah bint Yasār, the sister of Ma‘qil ibn Yasār al-Muzanī. She was married to Abū al-Baddāḥ, ‘Āṣim ibn ‘Adī ibn ‘Ajlān, who divorced her.
‘Abd al-Wāḥid al-Mulayḥī informed us; Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Nu‘aymī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf informed us; Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl informed us; Aḥmad ibn Abī ‘Amr informed us; my father related to me; Ibrāhīm related to me, from Yūnus, from al-Ḥasan, who said: Ma‘qil ibn Yasār related to me: “I married one of my sisters to a man, and he divorced her. Then, when her waiting period had ended, he came to propose to her. I said to him, ‘I gave her to you in marriage, made a home for you, and honoured you; yet you divorced her, and now you have come to propose to her again? No, by Allah, she shall never return to you!’ He was a man of good character, and the woman wished to return to him. So Allah, exalted is He, revealed: ‘Do not prevent them from marrying their former husbands.’ I said, ‘Now I shall do so, O Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.’” He said: “So I gave her to him in marriage.” (1)
His saying, “and they have completed their waiting period,” means: their waiting period has ended. “Do not prevent them from marrying their former husbands” means: do not bar them from marriage. Such prevention means withholding; its root sense is constriction and hardship. One says that a woman is afflicted by difficult labour when her child becomes lodged in her womb and its delivery is constricted. An intractable illness is one that cannot be endured.
The verse provides evidence that a woman does not herself undertake the marriage contract. For had she possessed that authority, there would be no possibility of such prevention, nor would there be any point in forbidding the guardian to prevent her. It was also said that the verse addresses husbands, forbidding them from causing harm, since the beginning of the verse addresses them. The first view, however, is sounder.
“If they mutually agree in a fair manner”: that is, through a lawful marriage contract and an acceptable dower. “This”: that is, this prohibition which He has mentioned—“is enjoined upon whoever among you believes in Allah and the Last Day.” He used the singular form, although the address is to the guardians, because the original form when addressing a group includes the plural second-person suffix. Then this usage became so widespread that people imagined the kāf to be part of the word itself, rather than a suffix of address, and so they used the singular form. When used in this manner, the kāf remains singular and accusative whether the addressee is two or more, female or male. It was also said that this is addressed to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him; hence the singular form. He then returns to addressing the believers, saying: “That is better for you,” meaning, more beneficial for you, “and purer”—that is, purer for your hearts from suspicion. For when each of the two has an attachment of love for the other, there is no assurance that they will not go beyond what Allah has made lawful for them. Nor are the guardians safe from thoughts arising in their hearts concerning the two of them—though the two may in fact be innocent—thus causing the guardians to sin. “Allah knows, whereas you do not know”: He knows of the love that each of them has for the other what you do not know.