بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
قَدْ سَمِعَ ٱللَّهُ قَوْلَ ٱلَّتِى تُجَٰدِلُكَ فِى زَوْجِهَا وَتَشْتَكِىٓ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَٱللَّهُ يَسْمَعُ تَحَاوُرَكُمَآ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌۢ بَصِيرٌ
Allah has certainly heard the speech of her who pleads with you about her husband and complains to Allah. Allah hears the conversation between the two of you. Indeed Allah is all-hearing, all-seeing.
ٱلَّذِينَ يُظَٰهِرُونَ مِنكُم مِّن نِّسَآئِهِم مَّا هُنَّ أُمَّهَٰتِهِمْ ۖ إِنْ أُمَّهَٰتُهُمْ إِلَّا ٱلَّٰٓـِٔى وَلَدْنَهُمْ ۚ وَإِنَّهُمْ لَيَقُولُونَ مُنكَرًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْقَوْلِ وَزُورًۭا ۚ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَعَفُوٌّ غَفُورٌۭ
As for those of you who repudiate their wives by zihar, they are not their mothers; their mothers are only those who bore them, and indeed they utter an outrage and a lie. Indeed Allah is all-excusing, all-forgiving.
وَٱلَّذِينَ يُظَٰهِرُونَ مِن نِّسَآئِهِمْ ثُمَّ يَعُودُونَ لِمَا قَالُوا۟ فَتَحْرِيرُ رَقَبَةٍۢ مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَتَمَآسَّا ۚ ذَٰلِكُمْ تُوعَظُونَ بِهِۦ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌۭ
Those who repudiate their wives by ³ih¡r and then retract what they have said, shall set free a slave before they may touch each other. This you are advised [to carry out], and Allah is well aware of what you do.
فَمَن لَّمْ يَجِدْ فَصِيَامُ شَهْرَيْنِ مُتَتَابِعَيْنِ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يَتَمَآسَّا ۖ فَمَن لَّمْ يَسْتَطِعْ فَإِطْعَامُ سِتِّينَ مِسْكِينًۭا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ لِتُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ ۚ وَتِلْكَ حُدُودُ ٱللَّهِ ۗ وَلِلْكَٰفِرِينَ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
He who cannot afford [to free a slave] shall fast for two successive months before they may touch each other. If he cannot [do so], he shall feed sixty needy persons. This, that you may have faith in Allah and His Apostle. These are Allah’s bounds, and there is a painful punishment for the faithless.
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُحَآدُّونَ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ كُبِتُوا۟ كَمَا كُبِتَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ۚ وَقَدْ أَنزَلْنَآ ءَايَٰتٍۭ بَيِّنَٰتٍۢ ۚ وَلِلْكَٰفِرِينَ عَذَابٌۭ مُّهِينٌۭ
Indeed those who oppose Allah and His Apostle will be subdued just as those who passed before them were subdued. We have certainly sent down manifest signs, and there is a humiliating punishment for the faithless.
يَوْمَ يَبْعَثُهُمُ ٱللَّهُ جَمِيعًۭا فَيُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا عَمِلُوٓا۟ ۚ أَحْصَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُ وَنَسُوهُ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ شَهِيدٌ
The day when Allah will raise them all together, He will inform them about what they have done. Allah has kept account of it, while they have forgotten, and Allah is witness to all things.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sura opens on a real courtroom of conscience: a woman argues with the Prophet over her husband and 'complains to God,' and God announces that He has heard her. All six present sources anchor these verses in the same historical event and read them as the abolition of a cruel pre-Islamic custom.
The occasion. Tabarsi, Tusi, Qummi and Bahrani converge on the story: Aws ibn al-Samit of the Ansar pronounced zihar against his wife — Khawla (bint Tha'laba, or bint Khuwaylid) — saying 'You are to me as my mother's back,' a formula that in the Jahiliyya divorced a wife yet left her permanently unmarriageable. She pleaded her poverty, her scattered family and her children, and God answered. Tabarsi preserves the vivid scene with Aisha washing the Prophet's hair, and the Prophet's practical charity of fifteen sa' to help the poor husband complete his expiation. The Enlightening Commentary gives the same narrative and draws the devotional lesson that God's threefold naming of Himself as All-Hearing teaches us to guard our words, for He hears our prayers.
The ruling. Al-Mizan frames the legal logic precisely: zihar does not effect a divorce — the wife is not literally a mother; the words are 'a denounced saying and a lie' the Law never sanctioned. Yet the man owes expiation (kaffara) if he would resume relations: freeing a slave, or two consecutive months' fasting, or feeding sixty needy. Tabatabai notes the closing 'God is Pardoning' hints the act is a forgivable sin, while the expiation and 'these are God's bounds' suggest the pardon is conditioned upon it. Tusi adds the distinctively Imami conditions — purity, intent, two witnesses — without which no valid zihar occurs, and both Tusi and Tabarsi report that the Imams of the Family read 'then go back on what they said' as the intent to resume relations, undoing the pronouncement, not merely repeating it or regretting it. Qummi and Bahrani transmit the same juristic gloss from Hamran via Abu Ja'far (al-Baqir): 'no zihar in an oath, in causing harm, or in anger, and only in purity without intercourse with two Muslim witnesses.'
The turn to warning. Verses 5-6 pivot from the individual case to a principle: those who oppose (yuhadduna) God and His Messenger are 'abased as those before them were abased.' Tabarsi and Tusi gloss kabt as humiliation and disgrace; al-Mizan reads it as the recurring law by which resistance to revelation ends in defeat, sealed by the promise that on the Day of Resurrection God will inform them of deeds 'He has recorded while they forgot.' A single woman's grievance thus becomes the doorway to the sura's larger theme: God hears, God bounds, and God will requite.