Ma'arif al-Quran on Women's Issues

Among the most practically consequential dimensions of Ma'arif al-Quran is its treatment of the Quranic verses pertaining to women — their role in the family, their rights and obligations, dress and modesty, and their place in society. Mufti Shafi wrote in an era when modernist pressures were reshaping South Asian Muslim societies, and his commentary engages directly with the tensions between classical Islamic positions and the emerging norms of mid-twentieth-century Muslim life, offering the traditional perspective with clarity and without apology.

The verses on hijab — particularly those in Surah al-Ahzab (33:59) and Surah an-Nur (24:31) — receive careful and extended treatment. Mufti Shafi presents the classical Hanafi position that a free Muslim woman is obligated to cover all of her body except, in the Hanafi view, the face and hands when there is no fear of fitna, while noting that covering the face is strongly recommended and the position of many scholars. He engages with the view that the Quranic term 'khumur' (coverings) implies full head covering, and responds to modernist interpretations that sought to minimize the hijab obligation to something merely symbolic or cultural. His argument is philological, hadith-based, and historical: this is what the Companions and their wives understood the verses to require, and the consensus of classical scholars confirms it.

The commentary on the verse of qawwamah — 'Men are the caretakers of women, because Allah has given some of them more than others and because they spend from their wealth' (4:34) — is one of the most discussed passages in the work. Mufti Shafi explains qawwamah not as absolute male superiority but as a division of roles: men bear the financial responsibility and protective leadership of the family, while women have rights within that structure that the Quran explicitly guarantees. He rejects both the extreme that reduces women to subjects without rights and the modernist extreme that treats the verse as culturally conditioned and no longer binding.

On the issue of polygamy, addressed in Surah an-Nisa' (4:3), Mufti Shafi's commentary is measured and contextual. He presents the Quranic permission as conditional on justice between wives, explains the hadith reports establishing the stringent conditions that apply, and acknowledges the difficulty of meeting the justice condition in practice. He neither promotes polygamy as a casual option nor treats the Quranic permission as embarrassing. His framing situates polygamy as a provision for specific circumstances — protection of widows, care for orphans, social situations of demographic imbalance — rather than a general norm.

Inheritance shares for women — famously set at half the male share in the default case — are explained by Mufti Shafi through the full structure of Islamic financial obligations. Since men are obligated to provide for wives, children, and other dependents from their wealth while women have no comparable financial obligation, the apparently unequal inheritance share is set within a system in which women's financial security is provided through multiple other channels (mahr, nafaqah, maintenance after divorce). He presents this as a holistic system rather than a single isolated ruling.

Mufti Shafi's approach throughout these discussions reflects classical scholarship's confidence in the divine wisdom behind the rulings, combined with a genuine engagement with the questions modern readers bring. Whether or not one agrees with every position, the commentary models a way of engaging with difficult texts that is intellectually honest and theologically grounded.