Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
Be wary of Allah,
in whose Name you adjure one another,
and the wombs.1
Indeed Allah is watchful over you.
2 Give the orphans their property,
and do not replace the good with the bad,
and do not eat up their property
[by mingling it] with your own property,
for that is indeed a great sin.2
3 If you fear that you may not deal justly
with the orphans,3
then marry [other] women that you like,
two, three, or four.
But if you fear that you may not treat them fairly,
then [marry only] one,
or [marry from among] your slave-women.
That makes it likelier that you will not be unfair.
4 Give women their dowries as an obligation;
but if they remit anything of it of their own accord,
then consume it as [something] lawful and wholesome.
5 Do not give the feeble-minded your property
which Allah has assigned you to manage:
provide for them out of it, and clothe them,
and speak to them honourable words.
6 Test the orphans
when they reach the age of marriage.
Then if you discern in them maturity,
1 That is, ‘Be wary of Allah and observe the rights of the blood relations and beware of breaking the ties of kinship.’
2 See verse 2:220 and the footnote.
3 That is, girl orphans.
