In the first place...

In the first place, they had charged "You have taken your daughter-in-law as wife, in contravention of your own law that the wife of a son is forbidden to his father." In refutation of this charge it was affirmed by the Almighty: "Muhammad had no sons among ye men..." thereby making absolutely clear that the man whose divorced wife was taken into wedlock by the Prophet being not his real son; the act, therefore did not imply violation of it.

The argument of their second charge ran thus: "Admitted that the adopted son is not the real one, and on that basis a father might lawfully marry the divorced spouse of his adopted son, but where was the compulsion for the Prophet to do so?" Allah affirmed in answer to this charge: "But, verily, he is the Apostle of Allah".

The implication is that it was Allah's mandate to the Holy Prophet to wipe out all prejudices and declare all taboos that pagan custom had unnecessarily imposed upon the people, as lawful. In this respect the Prophet's action was unequivocal and left no room for doubt.

(see footnote 1, below.) In order to lay particular emphasis upon this point Allah observes: (Khatim Al-Nabbiyeen) "And he is the last in the line of Prophets," which means that no messenger nor even a Prophet charged with the mission of carrying out reforms in the sphere of Law or society which might have been omitted (God forbid) during the lifetime of Muhammad (PBUH) will ever succeed him.

Since Allah ordained the ministry of (PBUH) to be final, it was, therefore, imperative that he should accomplish the task of uprooting this pagan custom.

Later the point has been further emphasized in the revelation (Wa Kan ul-Allahi Be-kulle Shai-in 'Aleema): "God is Aware of everything." The true import of this revelation is that Allah deemed it best to remove this pagan custom through the agency of (PBUH) and that Allah only could take cognisance of the harm that the perpetuation of this infidel custom would have entailed.

Allah was well aware that the line of Prophethood ended in Muhammad (PBUH) whose precedent the whole ummah would follow, and had he not done away with this custom, there would arise no man comparable in status to (PBUH) who could accomplish the task. And suppose a reformer had arisen in later times who would break this custom, his act would not have constituted a universal or permanent precedent for Muslims of all ages and all countries to follow.