The 365 · Verses · Day 214 · Justice
The whole architecture of fairness, built around a nursing child.
۞ وَٱلْوَٰلِدَٰتُ يُرْضِعْنَ أَوْلَـٰدَهُنَّ حَوْلَيْنِ كَامِلَيْنِ ۖ لِمَنْ أَرَادَ أَن يُتِمَّ ٱلرَّضَاعَةَ ۚ وَعَلَى ٱلْمَوْلُودِ لَهُۥ رِزْقُهُنَّ وَكِسْوَتُهُنَّ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ ۚ لَا تُكَلَّفُ نَفْسٌ إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا ۚ لَا تُضَآرَّ وَٰلِدَةٌۢ بِوَلَدِهَا وَلَا مَوْلُودٌ لَّهُۥ بِوَلَدِهِۦ ۚ وَعَلَى ٱلْوَارِثِ مِثْلُ ذَٰلِكَ ۗ فَإِنْ أَرَادَا فِصَالًا عَن تَرَاضٍ مِّنْهُمَا وَتَشَاوُرٍ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْهِمَا ۗ وَإِنْ أَرَدتُّمْ أَن تَسْتَرْضِعُوٓا۟ أَوْلَـٰدَكُمْ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذَا سَلَّمْتُم مَّآ ءَاتَيْتُم بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ ۗ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ
“Mothers suckle their children for two whole years, if they wish to complete the term, and clothing and maintenance must be borne by the father in a fair manner. No one should be burdened with more than they can bear: no mother shall be made to suffer harm on account of her child, nor any father on account of his. The same duty is incumbent on the father's heir. If, by mutual consent and consultation, the couple wish to wean the child, they will not be blamed, nor will there be any blame if you wish to engage a wet nurse, provided you pay as agreed in a fair manner. Be mindful of God, knowing that He sees everything you do. (Quran 2:233)”
2:233 Read 2:233 with tafsir
Svenska: Modern skall ge sina barn di under två hela år, om [föräldrarna] önskar en full amningsperiod. Och barnets fader är skyldig att svara för moderns uppehälle och kläder enligt skick och sed. På ingen skall läggas en tyngre börda än han kan bära. Barnet skall inte bli en förevändning för att skada vare sig modern eller barnets fader. Samma [skyldigheter vilar] på [faderns] arvinge. Föräldrarna skall inte klandras om de i samråd beslutar att skilja barnet från modern. Och om ni beslutar lämna era barn till en fostermor skall ni inte klandras för detta, förutsatt att ni sörjer som sig bör för barnets säkerhet och välfärd. Och frukta Gud och tänk på att Gud ser vad ni gör.
The story
Around a single act - a mother nursing her child - this āyah builds an entire architecture of fairness. Ibn Kathīr explains that the two full years (ḥawlayn kāmilayn) fix the outer term of suckling: nursing within this window is what establishes the bond of milk-kinship (taḥrīm), and he cites the ḥadīth of Umm Salama in al-Tirmidhī - graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ - that suckling establishes prohibition only when it comes before weaning. Al-Saʿdī adds that reading this verse together with 'his bearing and weaning are thirty months' (46:15), the scholars derived that the minimum term of pregnancy is six months. But the heart of the āyah is its balance of burdens. The father - whom the verse calls al-mawlūd lahu, 'the one to whom the child is born' - must provide the mother's food and clothing bil-maʿrūf, in a fair and customary measure, the wealthy according to his means and the poor according to his, for no soul is burdened beyond its capacity. Then comes the double warning, lā tuḍārra: let no mother be harmed through her child, and no father either. Ibn Kathīr, following Mujāhid, Qatāda, al-Ḍaḥḥāk and ath-Thawrī, reads it in both directions at once - a mother may not withhold nursing to wound the father, nor may a father tear the child away to wound the mother. And the decision to wean early is to be reached ʿan tarāḍin wa tashāwur, by mutual consent and consultation. Justice here is not a courtroom verdict; it is the refusal to turn a child into a weapon.
In the language
Twice the āyah declines the plain word for father (ab) and says instead al-mawlūd lahu - 'the one for whom the child was born.' Al-Saʿdī reads the phrasing itself as an argument: the child is attributed to the father because the child is, in a sense, given to him and of his earning, which is why a father may take from his child's wealth in a way a mother may not. The prohibition, too, is shaped with care. Ibn Kathīr reads tuḍārra as forbidding harm in both directions at once - the same word forbids the mother to harm and forbids her to be harmed, and does the same for the father. Linguistically the verb catches both ḍarar (inflicting harm) and ḍirār (harm returned as revenge), so that neither passes. The Qurʾān does not say 'do not harm,' which would name one aggressor; it seals the door in both directions.
Why this verse
Justice is easy to picture as something grand - courts, rulers, scales. This āyah plants it in the most private place there is: a nursing mother, a providing father, a two-year-old. The first justice a human being ever receives, or is denied, is administered in a household, over milk and money and who gets to hold the child.
Bring it into today
Notice how exact the āyah is. It fixes a term (two years), a standard of provision (bil-maʿrūf - customary and fair, scaled to means), and a red line (no harm, in either direction). Carry it into any home where two parents share a child, together or apart:
1. Provision is a due, not a favour - measured by capacity, not by mood.
2. A child is never leverage. Withholding access, weaponising nursing or custody, using the child to punish the other parent: the āyah forbids it by name, twice.
3. Big decisions about the child are to be reached by consultation and mutual consent, not by one parent overriding the other. Ibn Kathīr calls that shared consultation itself a mercy - God legislated the method, not only the outcome.
A reflection to carry
Around one nursing child, the āyah legislates a term, a fair measure of provision, and a double prohibition on harm. Ibn Kathīr reads lā tuḍārra in both directions: neither parent may wound the other through the child. Al-Saʿdī draws the practical fawāʾid - provision scaled to means, weaning only by mutual consent. Justice, in its first and most intimate form, is simply refusing to turn a child into a weapon.
Sources: Ibn Kathīr, al-Saʿdī. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
Also on Day 214
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