2 Preface الَّذينَ يُظاهِرونَ مِنكُم مِن نِسائِهِم ما هُنَّ أُمَّهاتِهِم ۖ إِن أُمَّهاتُهُم إِلَّا اللّائي وَلَدنَهُم ۚ وَإِنَّهُم لَيَقولونَ مُنكَرًا مِنَ القَولِ وَزورًا ۚ وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَعَفُوٌّ غَفورٌAli Quli QaraiAs for those of you who repudiate their wives by ẓihār,1 they are not their mothers; their mothers are only those who bore them, and indeed they utter an outrageous utterance and a lie. Indeed Allah is all-excusing, all-forgiving. A kind of repudiation of the marital relationship among pre-Islamic Arabs which took place on a husband’s saying to his wife ‘Be as my mother’s back’ (ẓahr; hence the derivative ẓihār).