۞ Piety does not lie in turning your face to East or West: Piety lies in believing in God, the Last Day and the angels, the Scriptures and the prophets, and disbursing your wealth out of love for God among your kin and the orphans, the wayfarers and mendicants, freeing the slaves, observing your devotional obligations, and in paying the zakat and fulfilling a pledge you have given, and being patient in hardship, adversity, and times of peril. These are the men who affirm the truth, and they are those who follow the straight path. 177 Believers, in case of murder, the death penalty is the sanctioned retaliation: a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, and a female for a female. However, if the convicted person receives pardon from the aggrieved party, the prescribed rules of compensation must be followed accordingly. This is a merciful alteration from your Lord. Whoever transgresses against it will face a painful punishment. 178 People of understanding, the law of the death penalty as retaliation grants you life so that perhaps you will have fear of God. 179 Prescribed for you, when any of you is visited by death, and he leaves behind some goods, is to make testament in favour of his parents and kinsmen honourably -- an obligation on the godfearing. 180 Then whoever alters the bequest after he has heard it - the sin is only upon those who have altered it. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing. 181 Howbeit whosoever apprehendeth from the testator a mistake or a sin and thereupon he maketh up the matter between them, on him there shall be no sin; verily Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 182