24. Surah An-Noor

7. These verses were revealed some time after the preceding verses. The law of qazf prescribed the punishment for the person who accused the other man or woman of zina, and did not produce witnesses to prove his charge, but the question naturally arose, what should a man do if he finds his own wife involved in zina? If he kills her, he will be guilty of murder and punishable. If he goes to get witnesses, the offender might escape. If he tries to ignore the matter, he cannot do so for long. He can, of course, divorce the woman, but in this case there will be no moral or physical punishment either for the woman or her seducer. And if the illicit intercourse results in pregnancy, he will have to suffer the burden of bringing up another person’s child. Initially this question was raised by Saad bin Ubadah as a hypothetical case, who said that if he happened to see such a thing in his own house, he would not go in search of witnesses, but would settle the matter there and then with the sword. (Bukhari, Muslim). But soon afterwards actual cases were brought before the Prophet (peace be upon him) by the husbands who were eyewitnesses of this thing. According to traditions related by Abdullah bin Masud and Ibn Umar, an Ansar Muslim (probably Uwaimir Ajlani) came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, if a person finds another man with his wife, and utters an accusation, you will enforce the prescribed punishment of qazf on him; if he commits murder, you will have him killed; if he keeps quiet, he will remain involved in anguish; then, what should he do? At this the Prophet (peace be upon him) prayed: O Allah, give a solution of this problem. (Muslim, Bukhari, Abu Daud, Ahmad, Nasai). Ibn Abbas has reported that Hilal bin Umayyah presented the case of his wife whom he had himself witnessed involved in the act of sin. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Bring your proof, otherwise you will have the prescribed punishment of qazf inflicted on you. At this a panic spread among the companions, and Hilai said: I swear by Allah Who has sent you as a Prophet that I am speaking the truth. I have seen it with my eyes and heard it with my ears. I am sure Allah will send down a command, which will protect my back (from the punishment). So, this verse was revealed. (Bukhari, Ahmad, Abu Daud). The legal procedure which has been laid down in this verse is termed as the law of lian. The details of the cases which the Prophet (peace be upon him) judged in accordance with the law of lian are found in the books of Hadith and these form the source and basis of this law. According to the details of Hilai bin Umayyah’s case as reported in sihah-sitta, Musnad Ahmad and Tafsir Ibn Jarir, on the authority of Ibn Abbas and Anas bin Malik, both Hilai and his wife were presented before the Prophet (peace be upon him), who first of all apprised them of the divine law, and then said: You should note it well that the punishment of the Hereafter is much severer than the punishment of this world. Hilai submitted that his charge was absolutely correct. The woman denied it. The Prophet (peace be upon him) then said: Let us proceed according to the law of lian. So, Hilai stood up first and swore oaths according to the Quranic command. The Prophet (peace be upon him) went on reminding them again and again: Allah knows that one of you is certainly a liar: then, will one of you repent? Before Hilai swore for the fifth time, the people who were present there, said to him: Fear God, the punishment of the world is lighter than of the Hereafter. The fifth oath will make the punishment obligatory on you. But Hilai said that God Who had protected his back (from punishment) in this world, will also spare him in the Hereafter. After this he swore the fifth oath, too. Then the woman began to swear oaths. Before she swore the fifth oath, she was also stopped and counseled: Fear God, the worldly punishment is easier to bear than the punishment of the Hereafter. This last oath will make the divine punishment obligatory on you. Hearing this the woman hesitated a little. The people thought that she was going to make the confession. But instead of that she said: I do not want to put my clan to disgrace for ever, and swore for the fifth time, too. At this the Prophet ordered separation between them and ruled that her child after birth would be attributed to her and not to the man; that nobody after that would blame her or her child; that anybody who accused either of them would incur the punishment of qazf and that she had no right left to claim maintenance, etc. from Hilai during her legal waiting period, because she was being separated neither on account of divorce nor due to the husband’s death. Then the Prophet (peace be upon him) asked the people to see whether the child on birth looks after Hilai or the man who was being accused in connection with the woman. After delivery when it was seen that the child looked after the other man, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: If there had been no swearing of the oaths (or if Allah’s Book had not settled the matter before this), I would have dealt with this woman most severely. The details of the case of Uwaimir Ajlani have been cited in Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Daud, Nasai, Ibn Majah and Musnad Ahmad, on the authority of Sahl bin Saad Saidi and Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both). According to these, Uwaimir and his wife were both summoned to the Prophet’s Mosque. Before proceeding against them in accordance with the law of lian, the Prophet (peace be upon him) warned them thrice, saying: Allah knows well that one of you is a liar; then, will one of you repent? When neither repented, they were told to exercise lian. After that Uwaimir said: O Messenger of Allah, now if I keep this woman, I would be a liar and then he divorced her thrice there and then even without the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) permission to do so. According to Sahl bin Saad, the Prophet (peace be upon him) enforced the divorce to separate them, and said: There shall be separation between the husband and the wife if they exercise lian. This became established as a Sunnah that the couple who swore against each other would separate never to marry again. Ibn Umar only says this that the Prophet (peace be upon him) enforced separation between them. Sahl bin Saad, however, adds that the woman was pregnant and Uwaimir said that it was not due to his seed; so the child was attributed to the mother. The practice that thus became established was that such a child would inherit the mother and the mother him. Apart from these two cases, we find several other traditions also in the books of Hadith, which may or may not be related to these cases, but some of these traditions mention other cases as well, which provide important components of the law of lian. Ibn Umar has reported traditions according to which the Prophet (peace be upon him) ordered separation between the spouses after lian and ruled that in case of pregnancy the child would be attributed to the mother (sihah Sitta, Ahmad). According to another tradition of Ibn Umar, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to a man and woman after lian: Now your affair is with Allah, in any case one of you is a liar. Then he said to the man: Now she is not yours, you have no right on her, nor can you treat her vindictively in any way. The man requested to have my dowry returned. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: You have no right to have the dowry back. If you are true in your accusation, the dowry is the price of the pleasure you had from her when she was lawful to you; and if your accusation is false, the dowry has receded farther away from you than it is from her. (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Daud). Daraqutni has quoted Ali bin Abi Talib and Ibn Masud (may Allah be pleased with them both) as saying: The Sunnah that has become established is that the spouses who have exercised lian against each other, can never re-unite in marriage. Again Daraqutni has quoted Abdullah bin Abbas as saying: The Prophet (peace be upon him) himself has ruled that the two can never re-unite in wedlock. Qabisah bin Zuaib has reported that a man in the time of Umar alleged that his wife was pregnant by illicit intercourse, then admitted that it was by his own seed, but after delivery again denied that the child was his. The case was brought to the court of Umar, who enforced the prescribed punishment of qazf on the man and ruled that the child would be attributed to him. (Daraqutni, Baihaqi). Ibn Abbas has reported that a man came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: I have a wife for whom I have great love; but her weakness is that she does not mind if the other man touches her. (By this he might have meant zina or a lesser moral evil). The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: You may divorce her. The man said: But I cannot live without her. Thereupon the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Then you should pull on with her. The Prophet (peace be upon him) did not ask the man for any explanation, nor took his complaint as an accusation of zina, nor applied the law of lian. (Nasai). Abu Hurairah has narrated the case of a beduin who came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said that his wife had given birth to a dark-coloured son and he was doubtful that it was his. (That is, the child’s color had caused him the suspicion, otherwise there was no ground with him to accuse her of zina). The Prophet (peace be upon him) asked him: Do you have any camels? The man replied in the affirmative. The Prophet (peace be upon him) then asked, What is their color? He said they were red. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Is any of them grey also? He said: Yes, some are gray also. The Prophet (peace be upon him) asked: What caused that color? He said: Might be due to some ancestor of theirs. The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: The same might be the cause for your child’s color. And he did not allow him to doubt and deny the child’s fatherhood. (Bukhari, Muslim, Ahmad, Abu Daud). According to another tradition of Abu Hurairah, explaining the verse of lian the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: The woman who brings a child into a family which does not actually belong to it (i.e. marries a man of the family with illicit pregnancy), has no relation with Allah. Allah will never admit her into Paradise. Similarly, the man who denies the fatherhood of his child, whereas the child looks up towards him, will never see Allah on the Day of Judgment, and Allah will put him to disgrace in front of all mankind. (Abu Daud, Nasai, Darimi). Thus, the verse of lian, the traditions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the precedents and the general principles of the Shariah together form the basis of the law of lian, which the jurists have formulated a complete code with the following main clauses. (1) There is a difference of opinion about the man who sees his wife involved in zina with another man and kills him instead of having recourse to lian. One group holds that he will be put to death because he had no right to take the law in his own hand and enforce the punishment. The other group says that he will not be put to death nor will he be held accountable for his act in any way provided that it is confirmed that he killed the man (adulterer) on account of zina and nothing else. Imam Ahmad and Ishaq bin Rahaviyah maintain that the man will have to produce two witnesses to confirm that he killed the adulterer only on account of zina. Ibn al-Qasim and Ibn Habib, from among the Malikis, attach an additional condition that the murdered person should be a married man; otherwise the murderer will be made subject to the law of retaliation for killing an unmarried adulterer. But the majority of jurists are of the opinion that the man will be exonerated from retaliation only when he produces four witnesses to establish zina, or if the murdered person himself confesses before death that he committed zina with the wife of the murderer, and if it is also confirmed that the murdered person was a married man. (Nail al-Autar, vol. IV, p. 228). (2) The law of lian cannot be applied mutually at home, but in a court of law in front of the judge. (3) Exercise of lian is not the sole right of the man; the woman also has a right to demand it in a court of law if her husband accuses her of zina, or denies fatherhood of her child. (4) There is a difference of opinion among the jurists as to whether lian can be resorted to between any husband and his wife, or whether they have to satisfy certain conditions. Imam Shafai holds that only that husband whose oath is legally reliable and who can exercise the right of divorce, can swear the oaths of lian. In other words, sanity and maturity according to him, are the sufficient conditions which entitle a husband to exercise lian no matter whether the spouses are Muslim or non-Muslim, slave or free, and whether their evidence is acceptable or not, and whether the Muslim husband has a Muslim or a zimmi wife. Imam Malik and Imam Ahmad have also given almost the same opinion. But the Hanafis maintain that lian can be exercised only by free Muslim spouses, who should not have been convicted of qazf previously. If both husband and wife are non Muslim, or slaves, or convicted of qazf previously, they cannot exercise lian against each other. Further more, if the woman was ever found guilty of an illicit or doubtful relationship with another man, exercise of lian will not be valid. The Hanafis have imposed these conditions, because according to them, there is no other difference between lian and qazf than this: the other man commits qazf, he is given the prescribed punishment, but if the husband himself commits it, he can escape the punishment by exercising lian. In all other respects, lian and qazf are identical. Moreover, since according to the Hanafis, the oaths of lian are in the nature of evidence, they do not concede this right to a person who is not legally fit to give evidence. But the truth is that in this matter the position of the Hanafis is weak, and the opinion of Imam Shafai is correct, because the Quran has not made the accusation of the wife a component part of the verse of qazf, but has prescribed a separate law for it. Therefore, it cannot be linked with the law of qazf and treated under the conditions prescribed for qazf. Then, the wording of the verse of lian is different from the wording of the verse of qazf and the two lay down separate injunctions. Therefore, the law of lian should be derived from the verse of lian and not from the verse of qazf. For instance, according to the verse of qazf, the person who accuses chaste women (muhsanat) of zina, deserves to be punished. But in the verse of lian, there is no condition of the chastity of the wife. A woman might have committed sins in life, but if she repents later on and marries somebody, the husband is not authorised by the verse of lian to accuse her unjustly whenever he likes, and to deny fatherhood of her children simply because she had once lived in sin. The other equally important reason is that there is a world of difference between accusing a wife and accusing the other woman. The law cannot treat the two alike. A man has nothing to do with the other woman. He is neither attached to her emotionally, nor his honor, nor his family relations and rights are at stake, nor his lineage. The only meaningful interest he can have in the woman’s character can be his desire to see a morally pure and clean society. Contrary to this, his relationship with his wife is deep and of varied nature. She is the custodian of the purity of his race, of his property and his house; she is his life partner, sharer of his secrets, and with her he is attached in most delicate and deep feelings. If she is morally corrupt, it will deal a serious blow to his honor, his interests and his progeny. These two things, therefore, cannot be considered alike, and the law cannot treat them as equal to each other. Is an evil affair of the wife of a zimmi, or a slave, or a convicted husband in any way different, or less serious, in consequences than that of the wife of a free, mature and sound Muslim? If the husband himself sees his wife involved in zina with another person, or has reasons to believe that his wife is pregnant by illicit intercourse, how can he be denied the right of lian? And if he is denied this right, what else is there in our law which can help him out of his awkward situation? The intention of the Quran seems to be to open a way out of a difficult situation for married couples in which a husband may find himself placed due to the wife’s immorality or illicit pregnancy, or a wife due to the husband’s false accusation or unjustified denial of the fatherhood of her child. This is not particularly the need of the free and sound Muslims alone; there is in fact nothing in the Quranic text which may confine it to them only. As for the argument that the Quran has described the oaths of lian as evidence (shahadat), and therefore the conditions of evidence will apply here, the logical implication would be that in case a righteous and just husband whose evidence is acceptable, takes the necessary oaths, and the wife declines to take the oaths, she would have to be stoned to death, because her immorality would thus become established. But it is strange that in this case the Hanafis do not recommend stoning. This is a clear proof of the fact that they too do not regard the oaths as exactly identical with evidence. The truth is that though the Quran describes the oaths of lian as evidence, it does not regard them as evidence in the technical sense, otherwise it would have required the woman to swear eight oaths and not four. (5) Lian is not necessitated by an allusion or expression of doubt or suspicion, but only when the husband accuses his wife clearly of zina, or denies in plain words that the child is his. Imam Malik and Laith bin Saad impose an additional condition that the husband while exercising lian must say that he has himself seen his wife involved in zina. But this is an unnecessary restriction which has no basis whatever in the Quran and Hadith. (6) If after accusing his wife, the husband declines to swear the oaths, the verdict of Imam Abu Hanifah and his companions is that he will be imprisoned and shall not be released until he exercises lian or confesses the falsehood of his accusation, in which case he will be awarded the prescribed punishment of qazf. On the contrary, Imam Malik, Shafai, Hasan bin Saleh and Laith bin Saad express the opinion that refusal to exercise lian itself amounts to confessing one’s being a liar, which makes the prescribed punishment of qazf obligatory. (7) If after the swearing of oaths by the husband, the wife declines to take the oaths, the Hanafis give the opinion that she should be imprisoned and should not be released until she exercises lian, or else confesses her guilt of zina. On the contrary, the other Imams (as mentioned in clause 6 above) say that in this case she will be stoned to death. They base their argument on the Quranic injunction:“it shall avert the punishment from her if she swears four times by Allah,”Now that she declines to swear the oaths, she inevitably deserves the punishment. But the weakness in this argument is that the Quran does not specify here the nature of punishment; it simply mentions punishment. If it is argued that punishment here means the punishment of zina only, the answer is that for the punishment of zina the Quran has imposed the condition of four witnesses in clear words, and this condition cannot be fulfilled by four oaths sworn by one person. The husband’s oaths can suffice for him to escape the punishment of qazf and for the wife to face the injunction of lian, but they are not enough to prove the charge of zina against her. The woman’s refusal to swear the oaths in self-defense certainly creates a suspicion, and a strong suspicion indeed, but a prescribed punishment cannot be enforced on the basis of suspicions. This thing cannot be considered as analogous with the prescribed punishment of qazf for the man, because his qazf is established, and that is why he is made to exercise lian. But contrary to this, the woman’s guilt of zina is not established unless she herself makes a confession of it or four eyewitnesses are produced to prove it. (8) If the woman is pregnant at the time of lian, according to Imam Ahmad, lian itself suffices to absolve the husband from the responsibility for pregnancy whether he has denied accepting it or not. Imam Shafai, however, says that accusation of zina by the husband and his refusal to accept responsibility for pregnancy are not one and the same thing. Therefore, unless the husband categorically refuses to accept the responsibility for pregnancy, he will be considered as responsible for it in spite of the accusation of zina by him, because the woman’s being adulterous does not necessarily mean that her pregnancy is also due to zina. (9) Imam Malik, Imam Shafai and Imam Ahmad concede the husband’s right to deny responsibility for pregnancy during pregnancy, and allow him the right of lian on that basis. But Imam Abu Hanifah says that if the basis for the man’s accusation is not zina, but only this that he has found pregnancy in the woman when it could not possibly be due to him, exercise of lian should be deferred until after delivery because sometimes symptoms of pregnancy appear due to some disease and not actual pregnancy. (10) If a husband denies fatherhood of a child, there is a consensus that lian becomes necessary There is also a consensus that after he has accepted e child once (whether it is in clear words or by implication, e.g. by receiving congratulatory messages on its birth, or by treating it lovingly like one’s own child and taking due interest in its bringing up), he loses his right to deny him later, and if he does so, he makes himself liable to the prescribed punishment of qazf. There is, however, a difference of opinion as to how long the father retains a right to deny fatherhood of the child. According to Imam Malik, if the husband was present at home while the wife was pregnant, he can deny the responsibility from the time of pregnancy till the time of delivery; after that he will have no right. However, if he was away from home and delivery took place in his absence, he can deny the child’s fatherhood as soon as it comes to his knowledge. According to Imam Abu Hanifah, if he denies within a day or two of the child’s birth, he will be absolved from the responsibility of the child after exercising lian, but if he denies after a year or two, lian will be valid, but he will not be absolved from the responsibility of the child. According to Imam Abu Yusuf, the father has the right to deny fatherhood within 40 days of the child’s birth or knowledge of its birth; after that he will have no right. But this restriction of 40 days is meaningless. The correct view is that of Imam Abu Hanifah that fatherhood can be denied within a day or two of the child’s birth or knowledge of its birth, unless one is hindered from doing so due to a sound and genuine reason. (11) If a husband accuses a divorced wife of zina, according to Imam Abu Hanifah, this will be a case of qazf and not of lian. Lian can be resorted to between the spouses and cannot be extended to a divorced woman unless it is a retractable divorce and the accusation is made within the period of retraction. But Imam Malik holds that this will be qazf only if it does not involve the question of accepting or denying the responsibility of pregnancy or fatherhood of the child. If it is not that, the man has the right to exercise lian even after pronouncing the final divorce, because in that case he would not be having recourse to lian for the purposes of bringing infamy on the woman but to absolve himself from the responsibility of the child who, he believes, is not his. The same almost is the opinion of Imam Shafai. (12) There is a complete consensus of opinion in respect of certain legal implications of lian, but certain others have been disputed by the jurists. The agreed ones are the following. Neither the woman nor the man is liable to punishment. If the man denies fatherhood of the child, it will be attributed to the mother alone; it will neither be attributed to the father nor will inherit him; the child will inherit the mother and the mother him. Thereafter nobody will have the right to call the woman adulterous nor the child illegitimate, whether the people might be completely sure of her being adulterous under the circumstances at the time of lian. Any person who repeats the old charge against the woman or her child, will make himself liable to the punishment of qazf. The woman’s dowry will remain intact, but she will not be entitled to claim maintenance, etc. from the man, and she will become forbidden to him forever. There is, however, a difference of opinion in respect of two things. (a) After lian how will separation be effected between the husband and the wife? (b) Is it possible for them to re-unite in marriage after they have been separated on account of lian? As regards to the first question, Imam Shafai holds the opinion that as soon as a man has exercised his lian, the woman stands automatically separated whether she refutes the man’s charge by her lian or not. Imam Malik, Laith bin Saad and Zufar maintain that separation is effected when both a man and a woman have exercised their lian one after the other. Imam Abu Hanifah, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad hold that separation does not take place automatically after lian, but it is affected by the judge. If the husband pronounces divorce, it takes effect otherwise the judge will announce their separation. Regarding the second, question, the opinion of Imam Malik, Abu Yusuf, Zufar, Sufyan Thauri, Ishaq bin Rahaviyah, Shafai, Ahmad bin Hanbal and Hasan bin Zaid is that the spouses who have been separated due to lian are forbidden to each other forever. Even if they wish to remarry, they cannot do so in any case. The same is the opinion also of Umar, Ali and Abdullah bin Masud. Contrary to this, Said bin Musayyab, Ibrahim Nakhai, Shabi, Said bin Jubair, Abu Hanifah and Muhammad (may Allah be pleased with them all) opine that if the husband confesses his lie, and he is awarded the prescribed punishment for qazf, the two can re-unite in marriage. They argue that it is lian which makes them unlawful for each other. As long as they stand by their lian, they will remain forbidden for each other, but when the husband confesses his lie and receives the punishment, lian will become null and void and so will their prohibition to marry each other again.

8. This is an allusion to the slander against Aishah. Allah has Himself described it as ifk (false accusation, calumny) which implies its total refutation. From here begins the mention of the incident which provided the occasion of this Surah’s revelation. We have reproduced the initial part of it in the introduction as related by Aishah herself; the rest of it is reproduced below. She says: Rumours about this slander went on spreading in the city for about a month, which caused great distress and anguish to the Prophet (peace be upon him). I cried due to helplessness and my parents were sick with mental agony. At last one day the Prophet (peace be upon him) visited us and he sat near me, which he had not done since the slander had started. Feeling that something decisive was going to happen that day, Abu Bakr and Umm Ruman (Aishah’s mother) also sat near us. The Prophet (peace be upon him) started the conversation, saying: Aishah, I have heard this and this about you: if you are innocent, I expect that Allah will declare your innocence. But it you you have committed a sin, you should offer repentance and ask for Allah’s forgiveness; when a servant (of Allah) confesses his guilt and repents, Allah forgives him. Hearing these words, tears dried in my eyes. I looked up to my father expecting that he would reply to the Prophet (peace be upon him), but he said: Daughter, I do not know what I should say. Then I turned to my mother, but she also did not know what to say. At last I said: You have all heard something about me and believed it. Now if I say that I am innocent and Allah is my witness that I am innocent, you will not believe me; and if I confess something which I never did and Allah knows that I never did it, you will believe me. At that time I tried to call to memory the name of Prophet Jacob but could not recall it. Therefore in view of the predicament that I was placed in, I said: I cannot but repeat the words which the father of Prophet Joseph had spoken: fasabrun jamil: I will bear this patiently with good grace. (Surah Yousuf, Ayat 83). Saying this I lay down and turned to the other side. I was thinking that Allah was aware of my innocence, and He would certainly reveal the truth, but I could never imagine that divine revelation would come down in my defense, which the people will read and recite till the Last Day. What I thought probable was that the Prophet (peace be upon him) would see a dream in which Allah would indicate my innocence. But in the meantime suddenly, the state of receiving revelation appeared on the Prophet (peace be upon him), when pearl-like drops of perspiration used to gather on his face even in severe winter. We all held our breath and sat silent. As for me I was fearless, but my parents seemed to be struck with fear; they did not know what the divine revelation would be. When the revelation was over, the Prophet (peace be upon him) seemed to be very pleased. Over-joyed with happiness the first words he spoke were: Congratulations, Aishah, Allah has sent down proof of your innocence and then he recited these ten (verses 11-21). At this my mother said to me: Get up and thank the Prophet (peace be upon him). I said: I shall neither thank him nor you two, but thank Allah Who has sent down my absolution. You did not even so much as contradict the charge against me. (This is not the translation of any one tradition, but the substance of many traditions which are found in the books of Hadith in connection with the incident of the slander against Hadrat Aishah). One subtle point to be understood here is that before mentioning the absolution of Aishah, a full section of verses has been devoted to the commandments pertaining to zina, qazf and lian by which Allah means to admonish that zina is not a slight matter which may be used as a means of entertaining the people in a gathering. It is very serious. If the accuser is right in his accusation he should produce witnesses, and get a most horrible punishment inflicted upon the adulterer and the adulteress. If the accuser is false, he deserves to be given 80 stripes, so that nobody may dare to bring a false charge against the other person. And if the accuser is a husband, he will have to exercise lian in a court of law to settle the matter. So, none who utters such an accusation will have peace. The Islamic society which has been brought about for the purpose of establishing goodness and piety in the world can neither tolerate zina as a means of entertainment nor endure loose talk about it as a diversion and amusement. 9. Only a few persons have been mentioned in traditions, who were spreading the rumours. They were: Abdullah bin Ubayy, Zaid bin Rifaah (who was probably the son of Rifaah bin Zaid, the Jewish hypocrite), Mistah bin Uthathah, Hassan bin Thabit, and Hamnah bint Jahsh. The first two of these were hypocrites, and the other three Muslims, who had been involved in the mischief due to misunderstanding and weakness. Names of the other people who were more or less involved in the mischief have not been mentioned in the books of Hadith and life of the Prophet (peace be upon him). 10. That is, you should not lose heart. Though the hypocrites, according to their own presumptions, have made the worst attack on you, it will eventually bring misfortune on them, and will prove to be a blessing in disguise for you. As mentioned in the introduction above, the hypocrites had planned to inflict a defeat on the Muslims on the moral front, which was their real field of superiority and responsible for their victory on every other front against the opponents. But Allah turned this mischief into a means of strength for the Muslims. On this occasion, the conduct and attitude adopted by the Prophet (peace be upon him), Abu Bakr and his family, and the Muslims at large proved beyond any doubt that they were the purest people morally, tolerant and just in nature, noble and forbearing in character. If the Prophet (peace be upon him) had wished he could have gotten the people responsible for the attack on his honor beheaded immediately. But he bore everything with patience for a whole month. And when divine injunction came down from Allah, he enforced the punishment for qazf only on those three Muslims whose guilt was established, and even spared the hypocrites. Abu Bakr’s own relative, whose whole family he had been supporting all along, continued heaping disgrace on him publicly, but that noble man neither severed his family relations with him nor stopped monetary help to him and his family. None of the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him) took the least part in the slander nor even expressed the slightest approval of it. So much so that Zainab (a wife of the Prophet), for whose sake her real sister, Hamnah bint Jahsh, was taking part in the slander, did not utter anything about her rival (Aishah) except good words. According to Aishah herself: Zainab, among the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), was my strongest rival, but when in connection with the incident of the slander, the Prophet (peace be upon him) asked her opinion of me, she said: O Messenger of Allah, I swear by God that I have perceived nothing in her except piety. Aishah’s own nobility of character can be judged by this that though Hassan bin Thabit had played a prominent role in the campaign of slander against her, she continued to treat him with due honour and esteem. When the people reminded her that he was the man who had slandered her, she retorted: No, he it was who used to rebut the anti-Islamic poets on behalf of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and Islam. Such was the conduct and attitude of those people who were directly affected by the slander. As for the other Muslims, their attitude can be judged from one instance. When Abu Ayyub Ansari’s wife mentioned before him the rumours of the slander, he said: Mother of Ayyub, if you had been there in place of Aishah, would you have done that? She replied: By God, I would never have done it. Ayyub then said: Well, Aishah is a much better woman than you. As for myself, if I had been in place of Safwan, I could never have entertained such an evil thought and Safwan is a better Muslim than me. Thus, the result of the mischief engineered by the hypocrites was contrary to what they had planned to achieve, and the Muslims emerged out of this test morally stronger than before. Then there was more good to come from this. The incident became the cause of some very important additions to the social law and injunctions of Islam. Through these the Muslims received such commandments from Allah by which the Muslim society can be kept clean and protected against the creation and propagation of moral evils, and if at all they arise, they can be corrected promptly. Furthermore, there was another aspect of goodness in it also. The Muslims came to understand fully that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had no knowledge of the unseen. He knew only that which Allah taught him. Beside that his knowledge was the same as that of a common man. For one full month he remained in great anxiety with regard to Aishah. He would sometimes make enquiries from the maid-servant, sometimes from his other wives, and sometimes from Ali and Usamah. At last when he spoke to Aishah, he spoke only this: If you have committed the sin, you should offer repentance, and if you are innocent, I expect that Allah will declare your innocence. Had he possessed any knowledge of the unseen, he would not have felt so upset nor would have made enquiries, nor counselled repentance. However, when divine message revealed the truth, he received that knowledge which he had not possessed for more than a month. Thus Allah arranged to safeguard the Muslims, through direct experience and observation, against exaggerated notions in which people generally get involved in regard to their religious leaders on account of excessive blind faith. Perhaps this was the reason why Allah withheld revelation for a month, for if revelation had been sent down on the very first day, it could not have had any beneficial effect. 11. That is, Abdullah bin Ubayy, who was the real author of the false accusation and mischief. In some traditions it has been wrongly claimed that this verse refers to Hassan bin Thabit; this is actually due to a misunderstanding of the narrators themselves. As a matter of fact, Hassan bin Thabit’s only weakness was that he became involved in the mischief engineered by the hypocrites. Hafiz Ibn Kathir has rightly observed that if this tradition had not been included in Bukhari, it would not have deserved any notice. The greatest falsehood, rather a calumny, in this connection is the assertion by the Umayyads that it was Ali who had been referred to in this verse. A saying of Hisham bin Abdul Malik has been cited in Bukhari, Tabarani and Baihaqi to the effect: The one who had the greatest share of responsibility in it refers to Ali bin Abi Talib. The fact, however, is that Ali had no hand whatever in this mischief. The truth is that when Ali saw the Prophet (peace be upon him) in a perturbed state of mind and the Prophet (peace be upon him) asked for his counsel, he said: Allah in this matter has not laid any restriction on you: suitable women are plenty: you may if you like divorce Aishah and marry another woman. But this did not at all mean that Ali had supported the accusation against Aishah. His object was only to allay the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) mental anguish.

12. This may also be translated as: Why did they not have a good opinion of the people of their own community and society? The words in the text are comprehensive and contain a subtle meaning which should be understood well. What happened concerning Aishah and Safwan bin Muattal was only this: A woman belonging to the caravan (apart from the fact that she was the Prophet’s wife) was left behind, and a man belonging to the same caravan, who was also left behind, happened to see her and brought her on his camel to the camp. Now if a person alleges that when the two found themselves alone, they became involved in sin, the accusation would imply two other hypotheses: First, if the accuser himself (whether man or woman) had been there, he would certainly have availed of the rare opportunity and committed the sinful act, for he had never before chanced upon a person of the opposite sex in a situation like this. Second, the accuser’s assessment of the moral condition of the society he belongs to is that in that society there is no man or woman who could possibly have abstained from sin in similar circumstances. This will be the case when it involves any one man and any one woman. But supposing if the man and the woman happened to belong to the same place, and the woman who was left behind by chance was the wife, or sister, or daughter of a friend, or a relative, or a neighbor, or an acquaintance of the man, the matter would become much more serious and grave. Then it would mean that the one who utters such an accusation has a very poor and degraded opinion of himself as well as of his society, which has nothing to do with morality and good sense. No gentleman can imagine that if he finds a woman belonging to the family of a friend, or a neighbor or an acquaintance, stranded on the way, the first thing he would do would be to molest and dishonor her, and then would think of escorting her home. But here the matter was a thousand times more serious. The lady was no other than the wife of the Prophet (peace be upon him) of Allah, whom every Muslim esteemed higher than his own mother, and whom Allah Himself had forbidden for every Muslim just like his own mother. The man was not only a follower of the same caravan and a soldier of the same army, and an inhabitant of the same city, but also a Muslim, who believed in the lady’s husband to be the Messenger of Allah and his religious leader and guide, and had even followed him and fought in the most dangerous battle at Badr. Viewed against this background, it would seem that the person who uttered such an accusation and those who considered the accusation as probable, formed a very poor opinion not only of their moral selves but also of the whole society. 13. That is, the accusation was not worth any consideration; the Muslims should have rejected it there and then as a lie and a falsehood. A question might be asked: Why did not the Prophet (peace be upon him) and Abu Bakr Siddiq reject it on the very first day, and why did they give it all that importance? The answer is that the position of the husband and the father is different from that of the common people. Though none else can know a woman better than her husband and a righteous husband cannot doubt the character of a virtuous and pious wife only on account of the people’s accusations, but when the wife is accused, the husband is placed in a difficult situation. Even if he rejects it outright as a calumny, the accusers will not listen. They will rather say that the woman is clever and has beguiled the husband into believing that she is virtuous and pious whereas she is not. A similar situation is faced by the parents. They also cannot remove the accusers’slander regarding their daughter’s chastity even if they know that the accusation is manifestly false. The same thing had afflicted the Prophet (peace be upon him), Abu Bakr and Umm Ruman, otherwise they did not entertain any doubt about Aishah's character. That is why the Prophet (peace be upon him) had declared in his sermon that he had neither seen any evil in his wife nor in the man who was being mentioned in the slander.