Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)

and you have given one of them a quintal [of gold],
do not take anything away from it.
Would you take it by way of calumny and flagrant sin?!
21 How could you take it back,
when you have known 1 each other,
and they have taken from you a solemn covenant?
22 Do not marry
any of the women whom your fathers had married,
excluding what is already past.
That is indeed an indecency,
an outrage and an evil course.
23 Forbidden to you are your mothers,
your daughters and your sisters,
your paternal aunts and your maternal aunts,
your brother’s daughters and your sister’s daughters,
your [foster-]mothers who have suckled you 2
and your sisters through fosterage,
your wives’ mothers,
and your stepdaughters who are under your care
[born] of the wives whom you have gone into
— but if you have not gone into them
there is no sin upon you —
and the wives of your sons
who are from your own loins,
and that you should marry two sisters at one time
— excluding what is already past;
indeed Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful —

1 Know: To have sexual intercourse with (archaic).

2 That is, foster-mothers.

Cite this page

Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation, Islamic College for Advance Studies Press (ICAS), London (Distributed by The Centre for Translation of the Holy Qur’ān, Qom, Iran), Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 16 Jan. 2025: http://quran-archive.org/explorer/ali-quli-qarai/2005?page=143