and that they have nothing in their hands but selfish agendas and malicious aims. Had they only given the matter the slightest thought, they would have realized that what they are doing would never be approved by anyone who possesses even the least measure of faith or sound intellect.

Another illustration is His statement: “and your step-daughters who are under your care, born of the wives with whom you have consummated” (4:23). Whether or not the girl has been brought up in his household is not a condition for the prohibition, for she is forbidden to him in every case. Allah mentioned this qualifier solely to underscore how repulsive the situation would be: it is vile for a man to regard as lawful a step-daughter who, being raised in his lap, stands in the place of his own daughter. Allah therefore portrayed the matter clothed in the garb of its ugliness so that people of sound understanding would recoil from it, even though the prohibition itself is not tied to that specific circumstance. A woman is either wholly lawful or wholly unlawful, whether she is in a man’s care or not—just like all other women who are permitted or forbidden.

Another case is His saying: “Do not kill your children for fear of poverty” (17:31) and “because of poverty” (6:151), even though it is already known that killing one’s children is forbidden under all circumstances. The benefit in mentioning this particular motive is that it encapsulates every form of evil: it is an unlawful killing; it is the murder of those for whom human nature feels unmatched tenderness; and it springs from resentment toward Allah’s decree and from thinking ill of Him. Those who kill their children out of fear of poverty actually do so in annoyance and anger at Allah’s decree. They have become exasperated with poverty itself and have assumed the worst about their Lord, imagining that if they let the children live their poverty would increase and their destitution worsen—whereas the reality is the exact opposite.

Moreover, if killing them is forbidden in this situation—driven solely by the fear that poverty might occur—then the prohibition is even more emphatic when provision is ample. The verse also depicts the condition that was most common among them; by addressing the very motive that led to the act, the ruling becomes clearer and more explicit.

As for His statement concerning taking a wife back: “And their husbands have the better right to take them back during that period, if they desire reconciliation” (2:228), some scholars have classified this verse under the same heading, holding that the husband is entitled to take her back.