And if you desire to exchange a wife in place of another by divorcing the one and you have given to one of the spouses a hundredweight that is a large sum as dowry take of it nothing. Would you take it by way of calumny injustice and manifest sin? buhtānan ‘calumny’ and ithman ‘sin’ end in the accusative because they are circumstantial qualifiers; the interrogative here is meant as a rebuke and as a disavowal where He says
- 4:2020
وَإِنْ أَرَدْتُمُ اسْتِبْدَالَ زَوْجٍ مَكَانَ زَوْجٍ وَآتَيْتُمْ إِحْدَاهُنَّ قِنْطَارًا فَلَا تَأْخُذُوا مِنْهُ شَيْئًا ۚ أَتَأْخُذُونَهُ بُهْتَانًا وَإِثْمًا مُبِينًا
If you want to take another wife in place of the one you are married to, then even if you have given her a talent of gold, do not take back a thing. Would you take it away by slandering and using unjust means?
- common.revelation-Medinan
- common.hizb : 32