(52) “No women are lawful to you after this, nor may you exchange your wives for others, even if their beauty should please you, except those whom your right hand possesses. And Allah is ever Watchful over all things.”

This was an expression of appreciation from Allah—who has never ceased to be Most Appreciative—for the wives of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, because they chose Allah, His Messenger, and the abode of the Hereafter. He showed them mercy and restricted His Messenger to them, saying: “No women are lawful to you after this,” meaning after your present wives, “nor may you exchange your wives for others”; that is, you may not divorce any of them and take another in her place.

Thus, they were assured that they would neither have co-wives nor be divorced, for Allah had decreed that they would be his wives in this world and the Hereafter, with no separation occurring between him and them.

“Even if their beauty should please you,” meaning the beauty of other women: they are still not lawful to you, “except those whom your right hand possesses,” meaning bondwomen taken as concubines. That remained permissible for him, because bondwomen were not, in the wives’ aversion to them or in the harm they caused the wives, on the same level as co-wives. “And Allah is ever Watchful over all things”; that is, He watches over all affairs, knows what their outcomes will be, and governs them with the most perfect order and finest precision.