Surah 33. Al-Ahzab, Ayah 52

I.e., to divorce any of them with a view to taking another wife in her stead (with the prohibitive accent on the "supplanting" - i.e., divorcing - of any of his wives).

In my opinion, the expression ma malakat yaminuka (lit., "what thy right hand possesses", or "has come to possess") has here the same meaning as in 4:24 , namely, "those whom thou hast come to possess through wedlock" (see surah {4}, note [26]); thus, the above verse is to be understood as limiting the Prophet's marriages to those already contracted.

Some commentators (e.g., Tabari) assume that this restriction relates to the four categories of women enumerated in verse {50} above: it is, however, much more probable that it is a prohibition barring the Prophet from marrying any woman in addition to those to whom he was already married (Baghawi, Zamakhshari). Some of the earliest, most outstanding authorities on the Qur'an, like Ibn 'Abbas, Mujahid, Ad-Dahhak, Qatadah, Ibn Zayd (all of them cited by Ibn Kathir), or Al-Hasan al-Basri (quoted by Tabari in his commentary on verses {28-29}), link this prohibition of further marriages with the choice between the charms of worldly life and the good of the hereafter with which the wives of the Prophet were confronted on the strength of verses {28-29}, and their emphatic option for "God and His Apostle" (cf. note [32] above). All those early authorities describe the revelation of verse {52} - and the assurance which it was meant to convey to the wives of the Prophet - as God's reward, in this world, of their faith and fidelity. Since it is inconceivable that the Prophet could have disregarded the categorical injunction, "No [other] women shall henceforth be lawful to thee", the passage in question cannot have been revealed earlier than the year 7 H., that is, the year in which the conquest of Khaybar and the Prophet's marriage with Safiyyah - his last marriage - took place. Consequently, verses {28-29} (with which, as we have seen, verse {52} is closely connected) must have been revealed at that later period, and not, as some commentators think, in the year 5 H. (i.e., at the time of the Prophet's marriage with Zaynab).

This was revealed in A.H. 7. After that the Prophet did not marry again, except the handmaiden Mary the Copt, who was sent as a present by the Christian Muqauqas of Egypt. She became the mother of Ibrahim, who died in his infancy.