Prohibition (Al-Tahreem)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ O PROPHET, WHY should you forbid (yourself) what God has made lawful for you, in order to please your wives? Yet God is forgiving and kind. 1 God has already enjoined upon you [O believers] the breaking and expiation of [such of] your oaths [as may run counter to what is right and just]: for, God is your Lord Supreme, and He alone is all-knowing, truly wise. 2 And lo! [It so happened that] the Prophet told something in confidence to one of his wives; and when she thereupon divulged it, and God made this known to him, he acquainted [others] with some of it and passed over some of it. And as soon as he let her know it, she asked, "Who has told thee this?" - [to which] he replied, "The All-Knowing, the All-Aware has told me." 3 Would that you two (wives of the Prophet) had turned to God in repentance. Your hearts have sinned. If you conspire with each other against him, know that God is his Guardian. Gabriel, the righteous (ones) among the believers and the angels will all support him. 4 Perhaps his Lord, if he divorced you [all], would substitute for him wives better than you - submitting [to Allah], believing, devoutly obedient, repentant, worshipping, and traveling - [ones] previously married and virgins. 5 Believers, guard yourselves and your kindred against a Fire whose fuel is human beings and stones, a Fire held in the charge of fierce and stern angels who never disobey what He has commanded them, and always do what they are bidden. 6 O you who disbelieve! do not urge excuses today; you shall be rewarded only according to what you did. 7