Forbidden for you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your father’s sisters, and your mother’s sisters, and your brothers’ daughters and your sisters’ daughters, and your foster-mothers (who breast-fed you), and their daughters (your foster-sisters), and your wives’ mothers (mothers-in-law), and your wives’ daughters who are under your protection – born of the women with whom you have cohabited; and if you have not cohabited with them, then it is no sin for you to marry their daughters; and (forbidden are) the wives of your own sons (and foster-sons and grandsons) and the keeping of two sisters together in marriage, except what has already passed; indeed Allah is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful. 23 ۞ You are forbidden to marry married women except your slave-girls. This is the decree of God. Besides these, it is lawful for you to marry other women if you pay their dower, maintain chastity and do not commit indecency. If you marry them for the appointed time you must pay their dowries. There is no harm if you reach an understanding among yourselves about the dowry, God is All-knowing and All-wise. 24 And whoever of you have not the means wherewith to wed free, believing women, they may wed believing girls from among those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess, and Allah has full knowledge about your Faith, you are one from another. Wed them with the permission of their own folk (guardians, Auliya' or masters) and give them their Mahr according to what is reasonable; they (the above said captive and slave-girls) should be chaste, not adulterous, nor taking boy-friends. And after they have been taken in wedlock, if they commit illegal sexual intercourse, their punishment is half that for free (unmarried) women. This is for him among you who is afraid of being harmed in his religion or in his body; but it is better for you that you practise self-restraint, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. 25