Zaynab bint Khuzaymah al-Hilāliyyah, she died in Medina; but how do we know that she left any property and that the verse prescribing the inheritance shares had already been revealed?

For the words of Allah Most High:

“You are entitled to half of what your wives leave.”

[Surah al-Nisā: 12]

apply only to a man whose wife died and left an estate. A man whose wife did not die—or whose wife died (1) but owned no property—was not addressed (2) by this second-person suffix.

Even assuming that to be the case, his inclusion within one of the two second-person suffixes does not necessarily entail his inclusion within the other; that depends upon evidence.

If it is objected:

“You maintain that whatever rulings apply to him also apply to his community, and vice versa. When Allah commands him to do something, the command includes the community, and this is known from the customary usage (3) of the revealed law. Hence Allah Most High said:

‘When Zayd no longer had any need for her, We gave her to you in marriage, so that there would be no restriction upon the believers concerning the wives of their adopted sons once they no longer have any need for them.’

[Surah al-Ahzāb: 37]

Thus, He stated that He made this lawful for him so that it would be (4) lawful for his community. But when He singled him out for permission, He said:

‘And any believing woman who offers herself to the Prophet, if the Prophet wishes to marry her—this is exclusively for you, not for the believers.’

[Surah al-Ahzāb: 50]

How, then, can it be said that this second-person suffix did not include him?”

The answer is:

It is well known that those who say this do so because of what is known from the Lawgiver’s (5) customary usage in His discourse, just as it is known from the customary practice of kings that, when they address a governor with an order, his peer is also addressed