The Debate (Al-Mujaadalah)
In the name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace
۞ God has indeed heard the words of the woman who pleads with you about her husband and lays her complaint before God: God hears what the two of you have to say. God is all hearing, all seeing. 1 As for those of you who [henceforth] separate themselves from their wives by saying, "Thou art as unlawful to me as my mother", [let them bear in mind that] they can never be [as] their mothers: none are their mothers save those who gave them birth: and so, behold, they but utter a saying that runs counter to reason, and is [therefore] false. But, behold, God is indeed an absolver of sins, much-forgiving: 2 And those who say, regarding their wives, 'Be as my mother's back,' and then retract what they have said, they shall set free a slave, before the two of them touch one another. By that you are admonished; and God is aware of the things you do. 3 He who is unable shall fast for two successive months before they touch one another. If he is unable to do this, let him feed sixty needy people, so that you believe in Allah and His Messenger. Such are the bounds of Allah. There is a painful punishment awaiting the unbelievers. 4 Verily those who oppose Allah and His Messenger shall be brought low even as those before them were brought low. Surely We have sent down Clear Signs; and a humiliating chastisement awaits the unbelievers; 5 on the Day when God will raise them all from the dead and will make them truly understand all that they did [in life]: God will have taken [all of] it into account, even though they [themselves] may have forgotten it - for God is witness unto everything. 6