۞ Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous. 177 Believers, retribution is prescribed for you in cases of murder: the free man for the free man, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. If the offender is granted some remission by the heir of the slain person, the agreed penalty should be equitably exacted and should be discharged in a handsome manner. This is an alleviation from your Lord and an act of grace. He who transgresses after this shall have 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 unto you, when death is nigh unto one of you, if he leaveth any property, is the making of a bequest for parents and kindred equitably - a duty on the God-fearing. 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 He who fears injustice or sin on the part of a testator and brings about a settlement among the parties incurs no guilt. Allah is the Forgiver and the Most Merciful. 182