Surah 33. Al-Ahzab, Ayah 38

I.e., his marriage with Zaynab, which was meant to exemplify a point of canon law as well as to satisfy what the Prophet regarded as his personal moral duty.

I.e., the prophets who preceded Muhammad, in all of whom, as in him, all personal desires coincided with their willingness to surrender themselves to God: an inborn, harmonious disposition of the spirit which characterizes God's elect and - as the subsequent, parenthetic clause declares - is their "destiny absolute" (qadar maqdur).

Allah's ordering of the world is always full of wisdom. Even our unhappiness and misery may actually have a great meaning for ourselves or others or both. If our first Plan seems to fail, we must not murmur and repine, but retrieve the position by adopting a course which appears to be the best possible in the light of our duties as indicated by Allah. For Allah's Plan is framed on universal principles that cannot be altered by human action.

See n. 3724 above.

The next clause is parenthetical. These words then connect on with verse 39. Among the people of the Book there was no taboo about adopted sons, as there was in Pagan Arabia.