The Quran

يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا لِيَستَأذِنكُمُ الَّذينَ مَلَكَت أَيمانُكُم وَالَّذينَ لَم يَبلُغُوا الحُلُمَ مِنكُم ثَلاثَ مَرّاتٍ ۚ مِن قَبلِ صَلاةِ الفَجرِ وَحينَ تَضَعونَ ثِيابَكُم مِنَ الظَّهيرَةِ وَمِن بَعدِ صَلاةِ العِشاءِ ۚ ثَلاثُ عَوراتٍ لَكُم ۚ لَيسَ عَلَيكُم وَلا عَلَيهِم جُناحٌ بَعدَهُنَّ ۚ طَوّافونَ عَلَيكُم بَعضُكُم عَلىٰ بَعضٍ ۚ كَذٰلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمُ الآياتِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَليمٌ حَكيمٌ

Muhammad Asad

O YOU who have attained to faith!¹ At three times [of day], let [even] those whom you rightfully possess,² as well as those from among you who have not yet attained to puberty:³ ask leave of you [before intruding upon your privacy]: before the prayer of daybreak, and whenever you lay aside your garments in the middle of the day, and after the prayer of nightfall:⁴ the three occasions on which your nakedness is likely to be bared.⁵ Beyond these [occasions], neither you nor they will incur any sin if they move [freely] about you, attending to [the needs of] one another. In this way God makes clear unto you His messages: for God is all-knowing, wise!

In pursuance of the Qur'anic principle that the social and individual - as well as the spiritual and material - aspects of human life form one indivisible whole and cannot, therefore, be dealt with independently of one another, the discourse returns to the consideration of some of the rules of healthy social behaviour enunciated in the earlier parts of this surah. The following passage takes up and elaborates the theme of the individual's right to pflvacy, already touched upon in verses 27-29 above.
Lit., "whom your right hands possess" - a phrase which, primarily and as a rule, denotes male and female slaves. Since, however, the institution of slavery is envisaged in the Qur'an as a mere historic phenomenon that must in time be abolished (cf. notes 46 and 47 on verse 33 of this silrah, as well as note 146 on 2:177), the above expression may also be understood as referring, in general, to one's close dependants and to domestic servants of either sex. Alternatively; the phrase ma malakat aymainukum may denote, in this context, "those whom you rightfully possess through wedlock", i.e., wives and husbands (cf. 4:24 and the corresponding note 26).
I.e., all children, irrespective of whether they are related to one or not.
The term zahirah (lit., "midday" or, occasionally, "heat of midday"), which occurs in the Qur'an only in this one instance, may have been used metonyrnically in the sense of "day-time" as contrasted with the time after the prayer of nightfall and before the prayer of daybreak: hence my tentative rendering as "middle of the day".
Lit., "three [periods] of nakedness (thalath 'awrat) for you". This phrase is to be understood both literally and figuratively. Primarily, the term 'awrah signifies those parts of a mature person's body which cannot in decency be exposed to any but one's wife or husband or, in case of illness, one's physician. In its tropical sense, it is also used to denote spiritual "nakedness", as well as situations and circumstances in which a person is entitled to absolute privacy. The number "three" used twice in this context is not, of course, enumerative or exclusive, but is obviously meant to stress the recurrent nature of the occasions on which even the most familiar members of the household, including husbands, wives and children, must respect that privacy.