Sūrah 66 · Āyāt 9–12

al-Taḥrīm 66:9–12 — Jihād against disbelief and hypocrisy, and four women held up as parables

The sūra closes by widening from the Prophet's household to the world: a command to "strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites," then two pairs of women — the wives of Noah and Lot against the wife of Pharaoh and Mary — held up as parables that connection saves no one and condemns no one; only one's own faith and deeds count. The sources read this ending as a pointed lesson aimed back at the two wives of vv. 1–5.

Jihād — and a distinctive reading. On "strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites," all sources agree the manner differs: al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān hold that the disbelievers are striven against by argument and, failing that, war, but the hypocrites only by word and winning-over — al-Mīzān and al-Ṭabarsī both noting "the Prophet never fought a hypocrite." A striking variant unites the Shīʿī sources: al-Qummī, al-Burhān and al-Ṭabarsī/al-Ṭūsī all record the reading "jāhid al-kuffār bi'l-munāfiqīn" ("strive against the disbelievers by means of the hypocrites"), with al-Qummī and al-Burhān glossing it that the Messenger strove against the disbelievers and ʿAlī against the hypocrites — al-Burhān adding Gabriel's word, "You, or ʿAlī."

The two condemned women — and a sharp divergence over "betrayal." On "the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot… they betrayed them," the commentary sources are emphatic that the khiyāna was religious, not sexual: al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī report from Ibn ʿAbbās that Noah's wife called him mad and Lot's wife betrayed his guests, and al-Ṭūsī states bluntly that "no prophet's wife ever committed adultery — whoever ascribes that has erred grievously." Al-Mīzān, with al-Rāghib, defines the betrayal as breaking a covenant in religion, equating khiyāna with nifāq. Against this stands the distinctive narration in al-Qummī and al-Burhān (from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm and a Zurāra ḥadīth): "By God, He meant by 'they betrayed them' nothing but the indecency (al-fāḥisha)." These two sources also carry the most pointedly polemical taʾwīl of the whole sūra — al-Burhān applying the believing-woman parable to Ruqayya and to Fāṭima, and reading "deliver me from Pharaoh and his deeds… and from the wrongdoing folk" as "the third" and the Banū Umayya. These readings are reported here exactly as the sources give them, neither endorsed nor suppressed.

ʿĀʾisha and Ḥafṣa as the target. Al-Ṭabarsī (citing Muqātil), al-Ṭūsī (citing al-Farrāʾ), al-Burhān and al-Mīzān (from al-Ṣādiq via Sharaf al-Dīn) all read the disbelieving-women parable as a warning struck for ʿĀʾisha and Ḥafṣa: companionship of the Messenger will not avail them if they disobey, just as marriage to two prophets did not save Noah's and Lot's wives — "be instead like Āsiya and Mary."

The two exalted women. On Āsiya, al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān recount her torture under Pharaoh and her prayer for "a house with You in the Garden"; al-Mīzān reads this most profoundly — she chose nearness to her Lord over the palace of Egypt, joining the spiritual nearness ("with You") and the formal ("in the Garden") — and notes she was martyred, God taking her soul before the rock fell. On Mary, all three affirm her chastity, the breathing of the spirit (the Enlightening Commentary and al-Mīzān noting the genitive "Our spirit" is one of ennoblement), her affirming her Lord's words and Books, and her qunūt; al-Mīzān reads qānitīn (masculine) as deliberately tying her back to the lesson for the Prophet's wives. Al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān all close, as the sūra's commentators traditionally do, with the ḥadīth of the four perfected women — Āsiya, Mary, Khadīja and Fāṭima — the Enlightening Commentary adding the tradition of Fāṭima's surpassing rank.