Forbidden to you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your father's sisters and your mother's sisters, your brother's daughters and your sister's daughters, your milk-mothers, your milk-sisters, the mothers of your wives, and the stepdaughters - who are your foster-children, born of your wives with whom you have consummated the marriage; but if you have not consummated the marriage with them, there will be no blame upon you (if you marry their daughters). It is also forbidden for you to take the wives of the sons who have sprung from your loins and to take two sisters together in marriage, although what is past is past. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Compassionate. 23 ۞ Also forbidden are married women unless they are captives (of war). Such is the decree of God. Lawful for you are women besides these if you seek them with your wealth for wedlock and not for debauchery. Then give those of these women you have enjoyed, the agreed dower. It will not be sinful if you agree to something (else) by mutual consent after having settled the dowry. God is certainly all-knowing and all-wise. 24 And whoever of you have not the means wherewith to wed free, believing women, they may wed believing girls from among those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess, and Allah has full knowledge about your Faith, you are one from another. Wed them with the permission of their own folk (guardians, Auliya' or masters) and give them their Mahr according to what is reasonable; they (the above said captive and slave-girls) should be chaste, not adulterous, nor taking boy-friends. And after they have been taken in wedlock, if they commit illegal sexual intercourse, their punishment is half that for free (unmarried) women. This is for him among you who is afraid of being harmed in his religion or in his body; but it is better for you that you practise self-restraint, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. 25