Historical semantics of the word "Mahr": an exploration of the reasons for removing "Mahr" from the lexical system of the Holy Quran

Dowry is one of the concepts in the Holy Qur'an, which has always been the focus of scholars of interpretation due to its connection with various fields of jurisprudence, legal, social, economic and family, and many debates have been formed around it. However, among the interpretative questions about dowry that have not yet received an answer is why the Holy Quran, instead of using the long-established word "mahr" which has a long history in Arab culture before Islam, uses the word "Ajr", "Farizah", "Sadaqah" and "Nahleh" are used to refer to the concept of dowry.In order to answer this key question, in the present study, using the method of historical semantics, the oldest precedent of the word "Mahr" in the Afro-Asian language has been searched, the evolution of the meaning of this word up to Madrasa Arabic has been studied, and the components Its meaning is extracted in the context of revelation of the Holy Quran. This study shows that the word "dowry" was formed on the basis of this cultural belief in the pre-Islamic era that marriage is like an economic transaction in which a woman is a commodity in exchange for a certain amount of money, which is the dowry. , is exchanged.In contrast to this pre-Islamic belief, the Holy Quran has abandoned the use of the mentioned word and has used four new words to establish an Islamic culture in the field of dowry.