(O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you forcibly to inherit the women (of your deceased kinsmen)…) [4:19].
Abu Bakr al-Asfahani informed us> ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Asfahani> Abu Yahya> Sahl ibn ‘Uthman> Asbat ibn Muhammad> al-Shaybani> ‘Ikrimah> Ibn ‘Abbas (Abu Ishaq al-Shaybani mentioned that ‘Ata’ ibn al-Husayn al-Suwa‘i also related this tradition, and I do not think he related it from other than Ibn ‘Abbas) who said regarding the verse (O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you forcibly to inherit the women (of your deceased kinsmen): “It was the habit that, when a man died, his heirs had a better right to his wife, if one of them wished he would marry her, if not they married her off to somebody else or, alternately, leave her unmarried, for they had a better right to her than her own family. This verse was revealed about this issue”. This was related by Bukhari in the chapter on Tafsir from Muhammad ibn Muqatil and he also related it in the chapter on Coercion from Husayn ibn Mansur and both his narrators related it from Asbat.
The commentators of the Qur’an said: “In the pre-Islamic and beginning of the Islamic eras, if a man died and was survived by his wife, it was the custom that his son from another wife or his relative from his clan would come and throw his cloak on that woman, and this gesture entailed that he had a better right over her than she had on her own person or that anyone else had on her. If he then wished to marry her, he married her without giving her any dowry, except for the dowry which was given to her by her deceased husband. Alternately, he could marry her to someone else and take all her dowry, giving her nothing in exchange. Or, he could leave her unmarried to hurt her so that she would buy herself from him in exchange for what she inherited from her deceased husband, or wait until she died so that he inherits her. When Abu Qays ibn al-Aslat al-Ansari died, he was survived by his wife Kubayshah bint Ma‘an al-Ansariyyah. One of his sons, from another wife, by the name of Hisn (Muqatil stated that his name was Qays ibn Abi Qays) placed his cloak on her and, thus, inherited the right to her marriage. But then he left her untouched and failed to provide for her. He did this to hurt her in order to drive her to buy herself from him with her money. This led Kubayshah to go to the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace. She said to him: ‘O Messenger of Allah! Abu Qays has died and his son has inherited the right to marry me. But he has harmed me and is taking his time. He has failed to provide for me, to consummate the marriage or to let me go free’. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, said to her: ‘Remain in your home until Allah reveals something about your matter’. When she left and the women of Medina heard of this, they went to the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, and said: ‘We are in the same situation as Kubayshah except that it is the cousins who had married us instead of the sons’. Allah, exalted is He, then revealed this verse”.
Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi , trans. Mokrane Guezzou