\r\n Surah al-Ahzab (The Confederates) Chapter 33: Verses 56-62\r\n
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"God and His angels bless the Prophet. Believers! Bless him and give him greetings of peace. Those who malign God and His Messenger will be rejected by God in this world and in the life to come. He has prepared for them a humiliating suffering. And those who malign believing men and women for no wrong they might have done shall have burdened themselves with the guilt of calumny and with a blatant injustice. Prophet! Say to your wives, daughters and all believing women that they should draw over themselves some of their outer garments. This will be more conducive to their being recognized and not maligned. God is Much-Forgiving, Merciful. If the hypocrites, those who a\r\n re sick\r\nat heart and those who spread lies in the city do not desist, We will rouse you against them, and then they will not be your neighbours in this city except for a little while: bereft of God's grace, they shall be seized wherever they may be found, and will be slain. Such has been God's way with those who went before. Never will you find any change in God's way."
The whole universe echoes God's praise of His Prophet. No honour could be greater than this. When God so honours and praises the Prophet, it is exceedingly grotesque for humans to give offence to him. What makes this even more grotesque and ridiculous is that it is an affront to God by His creatures. They can never affront or offend God, but the expression here serves to show great sensitivity to any offence committed against the Prophet, in effect making it an offence against God Himself.
\r\n \r\nGod's strong condemnation against maligning believers generally, men and women, suggests that there was in Madinah at the time a group of people who schemed in this way against believers: they defamed them, conspired against them and circulated false allegations about them. God undertakes to reply to the accusers, describing them as hypocrites guilty of calumny and injustice.
\r\n \r\nGod Almighty then instructs His Messenger to say to his wives, daughters and Muslim women generally to draw over themselves some of their outer garments. In this way, they would be recognized as Muslim women and the hypocrites would be wise not to follow them to tease and malign them. Commenting on this verse, al-Suddi says: "Some wicked people in Madinah used to go out at nightfall to make indecent remarks to women... When such people saw a woman wrapped in her outer cover, they refrained from maligning her as they recognized her as free and chaste."
\r\n \r\nWe note the great care taken to purge all wicked behaviour from the Muslim society. These elements had to be pushed into a narrow corner, while new Islamic values and traditions took firm root in the Muslim community.
\r\n \r\nThe passage concludes with a stern warning to the hypocrites and those who were sick at heart as well as those who circulated false rumours requiring that they stop all such wicked action, and refrain from affronting the believers and the Muslim community as a whole. Unless they stopped, God would empower His Messenger to drive them out of Madinah, so that they could be taken and killed wherever they were.
\r\n \r\nCompiled From:
\r\n "In The Shade Of The Quran" - Sayyid Qutb, Volume 14, pp. 110-112