Allah explained the expiation for saying to one's wife: “you are unlawful to me just like my mother is” (Zihar), saying: (Those who put away their wives (by saying they are as their mothers)) those who make unlawful for themselves sexual intercourse with their wives (and afterward would go back on that which they have said) then go back on making it lawful; ((the penalty) in that case (is) the freeing of a slave before they touch one another. Unto this) freeing of a slave (ye are exhorted) as an expiation of the Zihar; (and Allah is informed of what ye do) regarding the Zihar, of expiation and other things.
