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XXIV, 31-34.
THE CHAPTER OF LIGHT.
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husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or what their right hands possess, or their male attendants who are incapable!, or to children who do not note women's nakedness; and that they beat not with their feet that their hidden ornaments may be known ? ;-but turn ye all repentant to God, O ye believers ! haply ye may prosper.
And marry the single amongst you, and the righteous among your servants and your handmaidens. If they be poor, God will enrich them of His grace, for God both comprehends and knows. And let those who cannot find a match, until God enriches them of His grace, keep chaste.
And such of those whom your right hands possess as crave a writing, write it for them, if ye know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of God which He has given you. And do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, if they desire to keep continent, in order to crave the goods of the life of this world; but he who does compel them, then, verily, God after they are compelled is forgiving, compassionate
Now have we sent down to you manifest signs, and the like of those who have passed away before you, and as an admonition to those who fear.
1 Or, according to some, of deficient intellect. * I. e. they are not to tinkle their bangles or ankle-rings.
3 I.e. a document allowing them to redeem themselves on payment of a certain sum.
Abdallah ibn Ubbâi, mentioned in Part II, p. 74, note 2, had six slave girls whom he compelled to live by prostitution, One of them complained to Mohammed, whence this passage.
I. e. like the stories of Joseph, Part I, p. 221, and the Virgin
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