they bear witness to the fact, shut them up within their houses till death release them,[1] or God make some way for them.
20And if two men among you commit the same crime, then punish them both; but if they turn and amend, then let them be: for God is He who turneth, Merciful!
With God himself will the repentance of those who have done evil ignorantly, and then turn speedily unto Him, be accepted. These! God will turn unto them: for God is Knowing, Wise!
But no place of repentance shall there be for those who do evil, until, when death is close to one of them, he saith, “ Now verily am I turned to God;” nor to those who die unbelievers. These ! we have made ready for them a grievous torment!
O believers! it is not allowed you to be heirs of your wives against their will; nor to hinder them from marrying, in order to take from them part of the dowry you had given them, unless they have been guilty of undoubted lewdness; but associate kindly with them: for if ye are estranged from them, haply ye are estranged from that in which God hath placed abundant good.
And if ye be desirous to exchange one wife for another, and have given one of them a talent, make no deduction from it. Would ye take it by slandering her, and with manifest wrong?
How, moreover, could ye take it, when one of you hath gone in unto the other, and they have received from you a strict bond of union?
And marry not women whom your fathers have married: for this is a shame, and hateful, and an evil way:—though what is past[2] may be allowed.
Forbidden to you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your aunts, both on the father and mother's side, and your nieces on the brother and sister's side, and your foster-mothers, and your foster-sisters, and the mothers of your wives, and your step-daughters who are your wards, born of your wives to whom ye have gone in: (but if ye have not gone in unto them, it shall be no sin in you to marry them;) and the wives of your sons who proceed out
- ↑ Women found guilty of adultery and fornication were punished at the first rise of Islam, by being literally immured. But this was exchanged, in the case of a maiden, for one year's banishment and 100 stripes; and in the case of a married woman, for stoning.
- ↑ What took place in the times of ignorance, previous to the revelation of the Koran. See Freytag's Einl. p. 201, as to the incestuous nature of the ante-Islamitic Arabian marriages.
