Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs
(And if ye fear) if you know (a breech between them twain (the man and wife)) a dispute between the man and woman and you cannot establish who is at fault, (appoint an arbiter from his folk) from the man's folk to the man so that he can hear what he has to say and therefore establish whether he is in the right or wrong (and an arbiter from her folk) from the woman's folk to the woman in order to hear what she has to say and therefore establish whether she is in the right or wrong. (If they) the arbiters (desire amendment) between the man and the woman, (Allah will make them of one mind) i.e. the arbiters, the man and the woman. (Lo! Allah is ever Knower) of the agreement and disagreement of the arbiters, (Aware) of the doing of the woman and the man. The verses from Allah's saying: (Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other…) to His saying: (If they desire amendment Allah will make them of one mind. Lo! Allah is ever Knower, Aware) were revealed about the daughter of Muhammad Ibn Salamah. Her husband, As'ad Ibn al-Rabi' had slapped her because she refused to sleep with him. Consequently, she went to the Prophet (pbuh) to seek retaliation against her husband, but Allah prohibited her from doing so.
Tafsir Ibn 'Abbas, trans. Mokrane Guezzou
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