SURA LXVI (66) - The Forbidding (Medina - 12 Verses) (CIX - 464)
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Why, O Prophet! dost thou hold that to be forbidden which God hath made
lawful to thee, from a desire to please thy wives, since God is Lenient,
Merciful?
God hath allowed you release from your oaths; and God is your master:
and He is the Knowing, the Wise.
When the prophet told a recent occurrence as a secret to one of his
wives, and when she divulged it and God informed him of this, he acquainted her
with part and withheld part. And when he had told her of it, she said, "Who
told thee this?" He said, "The Knowing, the Sage hath told it me.
"If ye both be turned to God in penitence, for now have your hearts gone
astray.... but if ye conspire against the Prophet, then know that God is his
Protector, and Gabriel, and every just man among the faithful; and the angels
are his helpers besides.
"Haply if he put you both away, his Lord will give him in exchange other
wives better than you, Muslims, believers, devout, penitent, obedient,
observant of fasting, both known of men and virgins."
O Believers! save yourselves and your families from the fire whose fuel
is men and stones, over which are set angels fierce and mighty: they disobey
not God in what He hath commanded them, but execute His behests.
O ye Infidels! make no excuses for yourselves this day; ye shall surely
be recompensed according to your works.
O Believers! turn to God with the turning of true penitence; haply your
Lord will cancel your evil deeds, and will bring you into the gardens 'neath
which the rivers flow, on the day when God will not shame the Prophet, nor
those who have shared his faith: their light shall run before them, and on
their rights hands! they shall say, "Lord perfect our light, and pardon us:
for thou hat power over all things."
O Prophet! make war on the infidels and hypocrites, and deal rigorously
with them. Hell shall be their abode! and wretched the passage to it!
66:10 God setteth forth as an example to unbelievers the wife of Noah and the
wife of Lot; they were under two of our righteous servants, both of whom they
deceived: but their husbands availed them nought against God: and it shall be
said "Enter ye into the fire with those who enter."
God also holdeth forth to those who believe the example of the wife of
Pharaoh, when she said, "Lord, build me an house with thee in Paradise, and
deliver me from Pharaoh and his doings; and deliver me from the wicked:"
And Mary, the daughter of Imran, who kept her maidenhood, and into
whose womb we breathed of our spirit, and who believed in the words of her
Lord and His Scriptures, and was one of the devout.