The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

24. LIGHT
This Medinan sura clarifies several regulations for the Muslim community,
mainly to do with marriage, modesty, obedience to the Prophet, and appropriate
behaviour in the household. The initial context is the false rumour against
Aisha, the Prophet’s wife, who was left behind unwittingly by her travelling
companions after wandering away in search of a dropped necklace. She was
escorted back to Medina by a Muslim man coming later who found her there.
The sura is named after the Verse of Light (verses 35–6) where God’s light is
contrasted to the darkness in which the disbelievers find themselves engulfed.
In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy
1 This is a sura We have sent down and made obligatory: We have
sent down clear revelations in it, so that you may take heed. 2 Strike
the adulteress and the adulterer a one hundred times. b Do not let
compassion for them keep you from carrying out God’s law––if you
believe in God and the Last Day––and ensure that a group of
believers witnesses the punishment. 3 The adulterer is only [fit] to
marry c an adulteress or an idolatress, and the adulteress is only [fit]
to marry an adulterer or an idolater: such behaviour is forbidden to
believers. 4 As for those who accuse chaste women of fornication, and
then fail to provide four witnesses, strike them eighty times, and
reject their testimony ever afterwards: they are the lawbreakers,
5 except for those who repent later and make amends––God is most
forgiving and merciful.
6 As for those who accuse their own wives of adultery, but have no
other witnesses, let each one four times call God to witness that he is
telling the truth, 7 and, the fifth time, call God to reject him if he is
lying; 8 punishment shall be averted from his wife if she in turn four
times calls God to witness that her husband is lying 9 and, the fifth
time, calls God to reject her if he is telling the truth.
a The crime of zina in Arabic covers all extramarital sexual intercourse between a
man and a woman.
b Jalada in Arabic means ‘hit the skin’ with the hand or anything else. There are
reports that people used shoes, clothes, etc. (Bukhari, Hudud 4).
c This is not an injunction but a statement of fact, emphasizing the guilt of both.
There is another opinion that yankihu is used in its original sense of ‘copulate’. Whichever
translation is used, this is not part of the punishment but a condemnation of the
crime.