spouses of your own kind, through whom He multiplies you? Or does it mean that He has made your spouses from your own selves, since Eve was made from Adam’s own self? The same applies to “and mates from among the livestock.”

It may be said that specifying the kind is the more apparent meaning, since only Adam’s wife was created from him, as He said:

“He created you from a single soul and created from it its mate” [al-Nisāʾ 1].

The spouses of his descendants, however, were not created from their own persons. Thus, the meaning would be “spouses of your own kind,” just as He said:

“Why, when you heard it, did the believing men and women not think well of one another?” [al-Nūr 12].

And He said:

“Yet here you are, killing one another” [al-Baqarah 85].

And He said:

“And do not defame one another” [al-Hujurāt 11].

There are similar instances in the Quran.