Forbidden to you are your mothers and daughters, your sisters, your aunts paternal and maternal, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your mothers who have given suck to you, your suckling sisters, your wives' mothers, your stepdaughters who are in your care being born of your wives you have been in to -- but if you have not yet been in to them it is no fault in you - and the spouses of your sons who are of your loins, and that you should take to you two sisters together, unless it be a thing of the past; God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate; 23 ۞ And also forbidden to you are all married women (muhsanat) except those women whom your right hands have come to possess (as a result of war). This is Allah's decree and it is binding upon you. But it is lawful for you to seek out all women except these, offering them your wealth and the protection of wedlock rather than using them for the unfettered satisfaction of lust. And in exchange of what you enjoy by marrying them pay their bridal-due as an obligation. But there is no blame on you if you mutually agree to alter the settlement after it has been made. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise. 24 And whosoever of you has not ampleness of means that he may wed free believing women, let him wed such of the believing bondswomen as the right hands of you people own. And Allah knoweth well your belief, ye are one from the other. Ye may wed them then, with the leave of their owners, and give them their dowers reputably as properly wedded women, not as fornicatresses, nor as those taking to themselves secret paramours. And when they have been wedded, if they commit an indecency, on them the punishment shall be a moiety of that for free wedded women. This is for him among you, who feareth perdition; and that ye should abstain is better for you, and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 25