Surah 65:4:
And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women—if you doubt, then their period is three months, and those who have not menstruated. And for those who are pregnant, their term is until they give birth. And whoever fears Allah—He will make for him of his matter ease.
The core ethical and historical vulnerability of this Surah lies in its explicit calculation of the 'Iddah—the mandatory waiting period a divorced woman must observe before she can legally remarry, designed to verify whether she is carrying the child of her ex-husband.
Verse 4 meticulously breaks down the waiting period for three distinct demographic profiles of women:
Women who have gone through menopause ("those who no longer expect menstruation").
Pregnant women ("their term is until they give birth").
"And those who have not menstruated" (wa-allāʾī lam yaḥiḍna).
In classical Arabic philology and centuries of Islamic jurisprudence, the phrase "those who have not menstruated" does not mean women experiencing a temporary medical delay in their cycles. It explicitly designates pre-pubescent girls—children who are biologically too young to have reached menarche.
Because the text specifies a divorce waiting period for females who have never menstruated, the most foundational classical jurists—including Al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, Al-Qurtubi, and the four major Sunni schools of law (Madhahib)—unanimously concluded that the Quran explicitly permits the consummation of marriage with, and subsequent divorce of, pre-pubescent children.
To a human rights analyst or modern ethicist, this verse presents a severe challenge to the claim of a timeless, globally applicable divine morality. The text does not ban child marriage; instead, it structurally regulates its administrative fallout, permanently absorbing a primitive, 7th-century tribal Arabian custom into eternal monotheistic canon.