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19
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا لا يَحِلُّ لَكُم أَن تَرِثُوا النِّساءَ كَرهًا ۖ وَلا تَعضُلوهُنَّ لِتَذهَبوا بِبَعضِ ما آتَيتُموهُنَّ إِلّا أَن يَأتينَ بِفاحِشَةٍ مُبَيِّنَةٍ ۚ وَعاشِروهُنَّ بِالمَعروفِ ۚ فَإِن كَرِهتُموهُنَّ فَعَسىٰ أَن تَكرَهوا شَيئًا وَيَجعَلَ اللَّهُ فيهِ خَيرًا كَثيرًا

Muhammad Asad

O YOU who have attained to faith! It is not lawful for you to [try to] become heirs to your wives [by holding onto them] against their will;1 and neither shall you keep them under constraint with a view to taking away anything of what you may have given them, unless it be that they have become guilty, in an obvious manner, of immoral conduct.2 And consort with your wives3 in a goodly manner; for if you dislike them, it may well be that you dislike something which God might yet make a source of4 abundant good.
  • According to one of the interpretations advanced by Zamakhshari, this refers to a man's forcibly keeping an unloved wife - and thus preventing her from marrying another man - in the hope of inheriting her property under the provisions specified in the first sentence of verse 12 above. Some authorities, however, are of the opinion that the meaning is: "It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will" - thus expressing a prohibition of the pre-Islamic custom of inheriting the wives of deceased near relatives. But in view of the fact that Islam does not permit the "inheriting" of women under any circumstances (and not only "against their will"), the former interpretation is infinitely more plausible.
  • In the event that a wife's immoral conduct has been proved by the direct evidence of four witnesses, as stipulated in verse 15 above, the husband has the right, on divorcing her, to demand the return of the whole or of part of the dower which he gave her at the time when the marriage was contracted. If - as is permissible under Islamic Law - the dower has not been actually handed over to the bride at the time of marriage but has taken the form of a legal obligation on the part of the husband, he is absolved of this obligation in the case of proven immoral conduct on the part of his wife.
  • Lit., "with them".
  • Lit., "and God might place in it".