5وَإِنّي خِفتُ المَوالِيَ مِن وَرائي وَكانَتِ امرَأَتي عاقِرًا فَهَب لي مِن لَدُنكَ وَلِيًّاMuhammad Asad"Now, behold, I am afraid of [what] my kinsfolk [will do] after I am gone,1 for my wife has always been barren. Bestow, then, upon me, out of Thy grace, the gift of a successorLit., "after me". He evidently anticipated that his kinsfolk - who, like himself, were priests attached to the Temple - would be morally too weak to fulfil theeir duties with dignity and conviction (Razi), and thus, perhaps, unable, to safeguard the future of Mary, whose guardian he was (cf. the first paragraph of 3:37).