What their right hands possess
مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَٰنُكُمْ
mā malakat aymānukum — what your right hands possess
A fixed relative clause, mā malakat aymān- + possessive pronoun, whose only variable part is the pronoun (and in two verses a singular yamīn-). Read together, the ten verses show the formula functioning as a standing exception or category in rules about sexual access, marriage, and display of adornment, and once as the object of a rhetorical argument.
The frame is constant: the relative pronoun mā, the perfect verb malakat (3FS), and the noun aymān ('right hands', nominative plural) carrying a suffix pronoun. In the verses given the slot is filled by -kum (2MP) in (4:3), (4:24), (4:25) and (30:28); by -hum (3MP) in (23:6) and (70:30); by -hunna (3FP) in (24:31) and (33:55); and by -hum again in the second occurrence of (33:50). Two verses addressed to a single addressee replace the plural aymān with the singular yamīnuka: (33:50) and (33:52). The formula marks a category of possessed persons, set alongside spouses in all the verses except (30:28) and (33:55). In (23:6) and (70:30) it is an exception to a restriction on sexual access, paired with azwājihim ('their spouses'); in (24:31) and (33:55) it appears in lists of persons before whom adornment may be shown or with whom no restriction applies; in (4:3), (4:24), (4:25), (33:50) and (33:52) it enters marriage regulation as an alternative or exception. Only (30:28) uses the frame argumentatively: it asks whether those the addressees' right hands possess include shurakā' ('sharing-partners') in provision, turning the formula into evidence in a dispute about partnership. The frame thus takes a fixed grammatical shape and adapts by pronoun to second-person plural, third-person masculine and feminine groups, and a singular addressee.
Where it occurs
- 23:6 Exception paired with spouses to a restriction on sexual access; for then they are not blameworthy.
- 70:30 Identical exception clause to (23:6), with 'partners' instead of 'spouses' in the translation.
- 24:31 Item in a list of persons before whom believing women need not conceal their adornment.
- 33:55 Item in a list of relatives, 'their women', and what their right hands possess, regarding whom no restriction (junāḥ) rests on the women addressed.
- 4:3 Alternative to marrying one wife where justice among multiple wives is feared.
- 4:24 Exception to the prohibition of protected women, framed as 'a written ordinance of God upon you'.
- 4:25 Source of marriage partners for a man lacking capacity to marry protected believing women, specified as 'your youthful believing females'.
- 33:50 First occurrence: category made lawful to the singular addressee 'from what Allah has caused to return to you'; second occurrence: category about which Allah has prescribed for the believers.
- 33:52 Sole exception to what is not permitted to the singular addressee regarding women after a stated point.
- 30:28 Object of a rhetorical question asking whether any of those possessed are sharing-partners in provision, so that the addressees fear them as themselves.
All Qur'anic expressions