۞ Basic virtue is not just to turn faces to the East and the West, but true righteousness is that one must believe in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Book and the Prophets; and out of love for Allah, to give treasured wealth to relatives and to the orphans and the needy and the traveller, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free; and to keep the prayer established and to pay the charity; and those who fulfil their obligations when they make an agreement; and the patient during times of calamity, in hardships and during holy war; it is they who have proved true to their word; it is they who are the pious. 177 O Believers, the law of retribution has been prescribed for you in cases of murder; if a free man commits a murder, the free man shall be punished for it and a slave for a slave: likewise if a woman is guilty of murder the same shall be accountable for it. But in case the injured brother is willing to show leniency to the murderer, the blood money should be decided in accordance with the common law and the murderer should pay it in a genuine way. This is an allowance and mercy from your Lord. Now there shall be a painful torment for anyone who transgresses the limits after this. O men of understanding. 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 It has been prescribed for you that when death approaches one of you and he is leaving some property behind him, he should bequeath it equitably for his parents and relatives: it is an obligation on those who fear AIIah. 180 Whoever then alters it after he has heard it, the sin of it then is only upon those who alter it; surely Allah is Hearing, Knowing. 181 If, however, one has reason to fear that the testator has committed a mistake or a [deliberate] wrong, and thereupon brings about a settlement between the heirs, he will incur no sin [thereby]. Verily, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace. 182