Al Islam

2023. Of all the Quranic Chapters, the present one has been specifically called 'a Surah,' the significance being that as the word, "Surah," means rank or dignity, the Muslims by acting upon the commandments and ordinances embodied in this Surah can and will rise to great honour and dignity. (close)

2024. The emphasis on the words, which We have revealed and the ordinances of which We have made obligatory, points to the great importance of the commandments of this Surah inasmuch as all other Quranic Chapters also have been revealed by God and their commandments have also been made obligatory. (close)

2025. It is to be regretted that in slavish imitation of the customs and manners of other nations the Muslims have infringed and violated the commandments of this Surah more than the ordinances embodied in other Surahs of the Qur’an. (close)

2025A. The words, az-Zani and az-Zaniyah, signify respectively both an adulterer and a fornicator; and an adulteress and a fornicatress. (close)

2026. Chastity as a moral virtue holds a very high place in the code of Islamic laws that govern relations between the sexes. The present Surah has laid down comprehensive commandments to safeguard and protect it. Islam views with extreme disapprobation the slightest breach of these laws. It is Islam’s very great sensitiveness about chastity that is reflected in the punishment prescribed for adultery or fornication in the verse under comment. The punishment prescribed is hundred stripes, no distinction having been made whether the guilty persons are married or unmarried or one of the party is married and the other unmarried. Flogging and not stoning to death, according to this verse, is the prescribed punishment. Nowhere in the Qur’an stoning to death has been laid down as punishment for adultery and, for that matter, for any other crime, however serious. Islam has not prescribed killing as a necessary and unqualified punishment even for crimes much more heinous than adultery such as unprovoked murder, dacoity, treason against the State and disturbing the peace of the land. Though extreme penalty for these crimes is death, yet the payment of blood money in the case of the first offence (2:179) and imprisonment or banishment for the other crimes (5:33, 34) have been laid down as alternative punishments. Elsewhere in the Qur’an, where punishment for adultery for a married slave-girl is mentioned, it is stated that she will get half the punishment prescribed for that of a free, married woman (4:26), and evidently the punishment of stoning to death cannot be halved.

In spite of the fact that the Qur’an has quite clearly and unequivocally laid down flogging as the punishment for adultery and has made no discrimination whatever between a married or an unmarried culprit in the matter of awarding punishment (because Zani means, both a fornicator and an adulterer) and that the present and other relevant verses were revealed in connection with slander- mongering about ‘A’ishah, the Holy Prophet’s noble consort, who herself was a married lady. It is curious that the misconception has persisted without any justification or linguistic authority among certain schools of Muslim religious thought that the verse under comment deals with punishment for unmarried persons only and that the punishment for a married adulterer and adulteress is stoning to death. The misconception seems to be due to a few cases recorded in the Hadith when married persons guilty of adultery were stoned to death by the order of the Holy Prophet. One of these few cases was that of a Jew and a Jewess who were stoned to death in accordance with the Mosaic Law (Bukhari). It was invariably the Holy Prophet’s practice that he abided by the Law of the Torah in deciding cases till a new commandment was revealed to him. In one or two other cases on record in which the punishment accorded was stoning to death, it has not been established whether the crime was committed before or after the verse under comment had been revealed. It seems that in such cases the crime was committed before the revelation of this verse, but by some miscalculation on the part of some chronicler it was believed to have taken place after it. There are to be found such historical anachronisms in the books of Hadith. Or, there might have been some other aggravating circumstances besides the crime of adultery which made the Holy Prophet award the guilty person or persons the extreme punishment of death and which the chronicler of the incident failed to take into account. Otherwise, it is inconceivable that the Holy Prophet should have contravened the quite clear and unequivocal Divine commandment in this respect.

Another possible cause of misunderstanding about the form of punishment for adultery may be some sayings attributed to Caliphs ‘Umar and ‘Ali. ‘Umar is reported to have said, 'There was a verse in the Book of God about Rajm (stoning). We read it, we understood it and we remembered it. The Holy Prophet stoned adulterers to death and we also stoned after him. Were it not that people might say that ‘Umar had added in the Book of God what was not in it, I would have written it down' (Kashful-Ghummah, vol. 2, p. 111). The whole hadith seems to be pure fabrication or at best the result of misunderstanding of what ‘Umar might actually have said. How by writing down in the Qur’an what was part of it could be called an addition to it, and how of all men, ‘Umar could have been afraid of any body for doing the right thing, least of all for restoring to the Qur’an a lost text. And ‘Ali after flogging a woman, who had committed adultery, and then stoning her to death, is reported to have said: 'I have flogged her in obedience to the commandment of the Book of God and have stoned her to death in accordance with the practice of the Holy Prophet' (Bukhari). From these sayings two inferences manifestly emerge: (1) In the matter of punishing an adulterer the practice of the Holy Prophet was at variance with the commandment of God as laid down in the Qur’an, which is impossible. (2) Whereas according to ‘Umar there was a commandment in the Book of God about stoning to death of an adulterer, according to ‘Ali there was no such commandment, but it was only the practice of the Holy Prophet according to which he (‘Ali) stoned to death persons guilty of adultery. These sayings are not only mutually contradictory but demonstrably conflict with the express Divine commandment and therefore must be rejected as pure fabrications or at best distorted versions of what they said. See also "The Larger Edition of the Commentary," pp. 1836-1838. (close)

2026A. Nikah signifying coitus with or without marriage and marriage without coitus (Lane), the meaning of the verse is quite clear, viz. that when a man is having sexual intercourse with a woman who is not his wife, he is evidently an adulterer and the woman an adulteress; Nikah here signifying sexual intercourse and not marriage. But if Nikah here be taken to signify marriage, as some have done, then the meaning would be that az-Zani, i.e. a wicked man, who is not ashamed of freely indulging in adultery, can never prevail upon a chaste believing woman to marry him. Only a bad woman of low moral character or an idolatrous woman whose standard of morality like him is very low can be persuaded to marry him. (close)

2027. The pronoun 'that' signifies the committing of adultery. Islam regards adultery as one of the most heinous of all social crimes and seeks to close all those avenues through which this disease finds its way among a people and severely punishes it and condemns the guilty parties as social pariahs. While the preceding verse has laid down the punishment which is to be meted out to adulterers or fornicators the present one stigmatises them as social lepers with whom all social relationship should be avoided. (close)

a. 24:24. (close)

2028. The other social evil, second to adultery in heinousness, which eats into the vitals of human society, is the slandering of innocent persons. Islam also views with extreme disfavour this social evil which has become so common in the so-called civilized modern society, and severely punishes the accusers of innocent people. The verse mentions three forms of punishment in an ascending order which are to be meted out to a slanderer: (a) the physical punishment of scourging; (b) the disgrace of being branded as a perjurer and a liar which invalidates his evidence and (c) the spiritual stigma of being adjudged as a transgressor. It may be noted that no mention is made here of the accusation being true or false. So long as the accuser cannot produce the necessary evidence in support of his charge, the charge would be considered as false and the accuser would render himself liable to the prescribed punishment. Whatever the facts of the case, the woman with whom adultery is alleged to have been committed will be held innocent so long as the required evidence is not produced. The law, in fact, is intended to suppress with a strong hand the offence of slandering and scandal-mongering. The commandment contained in this verse covers both men and women although the word used is Muhsanat which means 'chaste women.' In the Arabic language when something has to be said which relates equally to both men and women the gender used is masculine. But when something is said regarding a matter which concerns women more than men, then the feminine gender is used. The commandment here relates to punishment for slandering whether the victim of the slander is a man or a woman but as women generally are more often the victims of such slanders, the verse speaks of 'chaste women.' Similarly, the word Alladhina (those), though in the masculine gender, applies to both men and women slanderers. (close)

a. 4:18. (close)

2029. Opinions differ as to which of the punishments prescribed for slandering is to be remitted after a slanderer repents and makes amends. The question of the first punishment does not arise because the corporal punishment is administered as soon as the offence of the guilty person is proved. The last two punishments can only be remitted after a real and true repentance is proved. (close)

2030. As suspicion between husband and wife is likely to cast a severe strain on the whole family relations, a special regulation has been laid down in the verse under comment to meet such an unhappy situation if it ever happens to arise. (close)

2031. After the accused woman has established her innocence by taking four oaths that her husband had falsely accused her and the fifth oath invoking God’s curse upon herself if her husband’s accusation was true, no punishment is awarded to her and the husband is also not held punishable for accusing her. But after such a serious breach the couple will cease to live as husband and wife, because no chance will then be left of the restoration of amicable relations between them. (close)