Recordings › A Reply to Abdullah Sameer's Allegation: The Quran Teaches Paedophilia | Mufti Abu Layth · 25 Jul 2019 › Segment 8 of 11
Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children?
muftis rawi raawi ruwat narrator sura soorah surat suwar soora chapter ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat talaaq triple talaq talak iddat idda waiting periodThe passage addresses women, nisa, not girls; the childhood counter-argument; why a girl would not be thought pregnant
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This segment24:43 to 27:19 · 2 min 36 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenYes: the passage opens with nisa, women, a word never used of a six- or seven-year-old, just as boys are never called rijal, and the verses go on to envisage pregnancy, which nobody would expect of a child.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth argues that the opening words 'when you divorce women' use nisa, women, not jariyat or other words for girls, and not even 'your wives'; nobody calls a girl of six, seven or eight a woman. He anticipates the counter-argument that children in the past were robbed of their childhood and treated as small adults, so that the word could be used of them linguistically, and answers that this would apply equally to boys, yet nobody called boys rijal, men, just as nobody called girls nisa. He says the whole passage is about divorce and the iddah: whether the couple reconcile, how long to wait, what to do if cycles are irregular or the woman is pregnant. He asks why, if the verse spoke of a little girl, anyone would think her pregnant and make her wait in case she was, since the clause on pregnancy follows immediately.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the word nisa with which the passage opens is never used of a little girl, any more than rijal is used of a boy, and that the passage's provision for pregnancy shows it concerns adult women.
“nobody refers you do not refer to a six-year-old girl as a woman or a seven-year-old girl or an eight-year-old girl”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine24:43 to 27:19 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
verses would have known of this challenge it's as though we go back to the very beginning of these verses that I've read to you just as we opened up this section yeah a you Hanabi in that the luck tom o prophet when you divorce and Missa women we mean not girls
Missa not but not not Jerry yet not Joe worry not we're not talking a dude didn't even say as logical he didn't even say your wives he said women nobody refers you do not refer to a six-year-old girl as a woman or a seven-year-old girl or an eight-year-old girl and if they say and let's let's what could be a counter-argument that they might bring up they might say oh well you know in the past because young people they were doing you know that
they were robbed of the in their kind of infant stages and childhood was kind of robbed from them therefore they were treated like many adults so because of that we're going to say linguistically we can use this then I ask you if that be the case if that be the case then them being robbed of their childhood was equal for boys and girls so show me where boys are core region where do you call ever show me where they called boys
region men they don't because neither do they call Bernard Lisa they don't call girls women now here allah begins by saying is that the luck to Manisa when you divorce women and this whole the whole verses are simply speaking about the divorce and the ADA if you reconcile if you don't reconcile how long should they wait they should wait three months
what if okay what if the dimensional cycle isn't so apparent what if you're not so sure what if they don't have regular cycles what if they're pregnant what should you do now tell me if it was if they trying to say this was a little girl why would you think that the little girl was pregnant anyway why would they think that they wouldn't think that a six-year-old was pregnant anyway so what would be the purpose of saying oh let her sit and either just in case go straight after it straight after II Allah says and what we'll have to laugh
Paragraphs overlapping 24:43 to 27:19. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2019-07-25-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t-x4lyns2ve/s/8/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, July 25). Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children? [Video, segment 2019-07-25-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t-x4lyns2ve/s/8/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children?" Video, segment 2019-07-25-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded July 25, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t-x4lyns2ve/s/8/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-07-25-S08, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Does the word 'women' in Surah al-Talaq rule out children?}}, year = {2019}, month = {7}, date = {2019-07-25}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t-x4lyns2ve/s/8/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/t-x4lyns2ve/s/8/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2019-07-25-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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