'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (and whoso is not able to afford to marry free, believing women, let them marry from the believing maids whom your right hands possess) who are in the hands of the believers. (allah knoweth best (concerning) your faith) he knows best that your hearts are firm in faith. (ye (proceed) one from another) you are all the children of adam; it is also said that this means: some of you follow the religion of others; and it is also said that this means: you are strengthened by one another; (so wed them) marry the maids (by permission of their folk) their owners, (and give unto them) the maids (their portions) their dowry (in kindness) on top of the price given to the prostitute for providing sex, (they being honest) he says: marry those maids who are chaste, (not debauched) not those who commit adultery in the open (nor of loose conduct) nor those who have lovers who commit adultery with them in secret. (and if when they are honourably married) if when they marry maids (they commit lewdness) fornication (they) the maids (shall incur the half of the punishment (prescribed)) lashing (for free women (in that case). this is) marrying maids is lawful (for him among you who feareth to commit sin) adultery and debauchery. (but to have patience) and refrain from marrying maids (would be better for you) in that your children would be free. (allah is forgiving) of the adultery you might commit, (merciful) when he gave you a legal dispensation to marry captives in cases of necessity.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : and whoever has not the means wherewith, [whoever] is not wealthy enough, to be able to marry believing (al-mu’mināt, ‘believing’, is in accordance with the prevalent practice, and does not add to the import), free, women in wedlock, let him take, in marriage, believing maids whom your right hands own. god knows very well your faith, so suffice yourself with its outward manifestation and leave the innermost matters to him, for he is the one to know her [true] merit: many a slavegirl may be more excellent [in faith] than a free woman, and this is meant to encourage marriage with slavegirls; the one of you is as the other, being equal in religion, so do not disdain to marry with them. so marry them, with the permission of their folk, their guardians, and give them their wages, their dowries, honourably, without procrastination or diminution, as women in wedlock (muhsanāt, a circumstantial qualifier), in decency, not illicitly, openly fornicating, or taking lovers, companions fornicating in secret. but when they are given in wedlock, [when] they are married off (a variant reading [for the passive uhsinna, ‘they are given in wedlock’] has the active ahsanna, ‘they enter into wedlock’), if they commit lewdness, such as adultery, they shall be liable to half the chastisement, the legal punishment, of married, free, virgin, women, who commit adultery, and are thus given fifty lashes and banished for half a year; [male] slaves by analogy are liable to the same punishment. here, god has not made wedlock the precondition for the prescribed punishment to show that stoning does not apply in their case [sc. slavegirls]. that, marrying of slavegirls on account of insufficient means, is for those of you who fear the distress of sin, fornication (al-‘anat originally means distress, but is used to mean zinā, ‘fornication’, because of the distress that it causes in the way of the punishment in this world and in the hereafter), as opposed to those of you who might not have such a fear [of distress] with regard to their free women and for whom it is unlawful to marry her [the slavegirl]; likewise for one who has sufficient means to marry a free woman [it is unlawful for him to marry a slavegirl instead]: this is the opinion of al-shāfi‘ī. moreover, god’s words ‘believing maids’ precludes unbelieving women, whom it is unlawful to marry, even if one should find no believing women and fear [the distress of fornication]; yet it is better for you to be patient, and abstain from marrying slavegirls, lest the child should become enslaved also. god is forgiving, merciful, by allowing room for manoeuvre in these matters.
