"And whoever among you cannot afford" – meaning: wealth – "to marry free, believing women," meaning: free believing women, "then from what your right hands possess of your believing young women," meaning: your believing slave girls. It is not lawful to marry the slave girls of the People of the Scripture. "And Allah is most knowing of your faith; you are of one another," meaning: the believers, their free persons and their slaves, their males and their females; and Allah is most knowing of your faith. "So marry them with the permission of their people," meaning: their masters, "and give them their dowries"