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

224 Do not make Allah an obstacle, through your oaths,
to being pious and Godwary,
and to bringing about concord between people.
And Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing.
225 Allah shall not take you to task
for what is unconsidered in your oaths,
but He shall take you to task
for what your hearts have incurred,
and Allah is all-forgiving, all-forbearing.
226 For those who forswear their wives 1
shall be a waiting for four months.
And if they recant,
Allah is indeed all-forgiving, all-merciful.
227 But if they resolve on divorce,
Allah is indeed all-hearing, all-knowing.
228 Divorced women shall wait by themselves
for three periods of purity [after menses],
and it is not lawful for them to conceal
what Allah has created in their wombs
if they believe in Allah and the Last Day;
and their husbands have a greater right to restore them
during this [duration],
if they desire reconcilement.
The wives have rights
similar to the obligations upon them,
in accordance with honourable norms;
and men have a degree above them,

1 That is, by pronouncing īlā, a pre-Islamic practice which allowed the husband to take an oath to refrain from sexual relations with his wife, which left the wife in a state of uncertainty for an indefinite period. According to this verse, the husband must decide within four months either to restore the marriage or to divorce her.

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 29 Mar. 2024: http://quran-archive.org/explorer/ali-quli-qarai/2005?page=82