Avoiding Dirty Words

Avoiding dirty words and using metaphors – استخدام الكناية

There are many filthy/obscene/vulgar words which immoral people often use (الكلمات التي لا يحسن ذكرها). If honourable people were to use dirty words, they would lose respect and they would become cheap in people’s eyes.

So, respectable people refrain from using cheap language. Instead, they use clean metaphorical speech to convey their message.

This is very common in the Qur’an and Sunnah – some examples:

1- The Qur’an states:
أَوْ لَمَسْتُمُ ٱلنِّسَآءَ
“Or if you have touched women…” [4:34].
Meaning: The “touch” here refers to sexual intimacy.

2- The Qur’an says about Jesus and Mary – peace be upon them:
كَانَا يَأْكُلَانِ ٱلطَّعَامَ ۗ
“They both ate food.” [5:75].
Imam al-Baghawi writes:
وقيل : هذا كناية عن الحدث ، وذلك أن من أكل وشرب لا بد له من البول والغائط ، ومن هذه صفته كيف يكون إلها؟
“It was said: This is a metaphor for impurity, because whoever eats and drinks must urinate and defecate. How can someone that has these characteristics be a god?”
[“Tafsir al-Baghawi”, 3/83].
Meaning: God did not want to use bad language, or to dishonour Jesus and Mary, but He indirectly alluded to the fact that they go to the toilet, like all human beings and God is exalted above impurities.

3- The Qur’an also states:
أَوْ جَآءَ أَحَدٌۭ مِّنكُم مِّنَ ٱلْغَآئِطِ
“Or if one of you returns from the low area of the land (‘al-ghaait’).” [4:43].
Meaning: In those times people had no toilets, so when they relieved themselves, they went to an area of the desert that was lower, so that nobody could see them, and that’s where they relieved themselves. The Qur’an did not use filthy words, but just alluded to the LOCATION of it, using that clean metaphor.
It did not even say: “IF YOU COME …”, (أو جئتم من الغائط) it says: “IF ONE OF YOU COMES…”, keeping it even further away from the reader.

4- And in another instance:
نِسَاؤُكُمْ حَرْثٌ لَّكُمْ فَأْتُوا حَرْثَكُمْ أَنَّىٰ شِئْتُمْ
“Your wives are like your plowing fields (tilth); so enter (and cultivate) your fields in any manner you wish.” [2:223].
Meaning: Just like a farmer plants seeds in a farm to grow crops, so does the man plant his seed (sperm) in his wife’s stomach and a child grows.

5- One example from the Sunnah, the Prophet said:
لاَ يَحِلُّ لاِمْرِئٍ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ أَنْ يَسْقِيَ مَاءَهُ زَرْعَ غَيْرِهِ ‏
“It is not lawful for a man who believes in Allah and the last day to water with his water (i.e. sperm) what another man has sown.”
[“Abu Dawud”, 2158].
https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2158
Meaning: It is not permissible for a man to have intercourse with a woman who is pregnant from another man.

6- And the Prophet said about divorced women:
لاَ تَحِلُّ لِلأَوَّلِ حَتَّى تَذُوقَ عُسَيْلَةَ الآخَرِ وَيَذُوقَ عُسَيْلَتَهَا
“She is not lawful for the first (husband) until she tastes the honey of the other husband and he tastes her honey.”
[“Abu Dawud”, 2309].
https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2309
Meaning: A woman cannot marry her divorced husband, until she marries and has intercourse with another man and he divorces her.

7- About the ‘Hur al-‘Ayin’ (women of Paradise), the Qur’an praises them as follows:
كَأَنَّهُنَّ ٱلْيَاقُوتُ وَٱلْمَرْجَانُ
“As though they were rubies and pearls…” [55:58].

And in another instance:
‏كَأَنَّهُنَّ بَيْضٌۭ مَّكْنُونٌۭ ‎
“As though they were eggs well guarded (in a nest).” [37:49].