Section Seven: The Similitude in the Captivity of Women

One of the issues through which the Muqassirah (Shortcomers) have mastered the art of offending the family of Muhammad (may their glory be exalted) is the issue of the captivity of the women (may their glory be magnified). They dared against Allah through their ignorance, obstinacy, and tyranny, and were not ashamed before Allah to believe in the "violation of the honor of the family of Muhammad" according to their miserable conjecture. They fabricated strange lies and bizarre stories regarding this matter, such as the beating of the women and the mockery of them by speech. Allah knows best what roams in the inner selves of the Muqassirah of thoughts, but they are accused, mistaken criminals in their sayings; one fears their inner selves and their conjectures. We seek refuge in Allah from these conjectures and sins, for Satan has laid his eggs and hatched them in their minds!

We will present in this chapter the texts that invalidate their saying and their conjecture about Allah, and we will refute some of their sayings.

In the beginning, after what we have presented previously, if it is established for the believer that humiliation, disgrace, mutilation, and killing do not befall the family of Muhammad and the People of Ranks, then the issue of captivity will become clear by extension: that it is a Tashbih (similitude) and did not occur in reality. This is because the women who were with our Master Al-Hussein (may his glory be exalted) were from the family of Muhammad and from the People of Ranks. However, we will draw attention to other matters, that perhaps the believers may benefit from them.

{Indeed, those who do not believe in the Hereafter name the angels with female names. * And they have thereof no knowledge. They follow not except assumption, and indeed, assumption avails not against the truth at all.}¹

We say, by His guidance, that the believer must realize that the women of the family of Muhammad are not, in reality, females. By this, we mean that the image is the image of a woman, but the characteristics of this image are not subject to menstruation or sexual intercourse, nor does there occur to it what occurs to natural women. Rather, they are images and garments worn for the sake of the Proof and for social familiarity (Ta'nis). For Fatima Azzahrae (may her glory be exalted) is the image of the name "Muhammad," which appeared through her in the form of femininity as a test for creation and as an affirmation of the Proof.