Light (Al-Noor)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
۞ WE HAVE REVEALED this Surah and made it obligatory as We have sent down clear injunctions in it that you may be warned. 1 The woman and the man guilty of illegal sexual intercourse, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment. (This punishment is for unmarried persons guilty of the above crime but if married persons commit it, the punishment is to stone them to death, according to Allah's Law). 2 The adulterer marries not but an adulteress or a Mushrikah and the adulteress none marries her except an adulterer or a Muskrik [and that means that the man who agrees to marry (have a sexual relation with) a Mushrikah (female polytheist, pagan or idolatress) or a prostitute, then surely he is either an adulterer, or a Mushrik (polytheist, pagan or idolater, etc.) And the woman who agrees to marry (have a sexual relation with) a Mushrik (polytheist, pagan or idolater) or an adulterer, then she is either a prostitute or a Mushrikah (female polytheist, pagan, or idolatress, etc.)]. Such a thing is forbidden to the believers (of Islamic Monotheism). 3 Those who defame chaste women and do not bring four witnesses should be punished with eighty lashes, and their testimony should not be accepted afterwards, for they are profligates, 4 save such as repent thereafter and make amends; surely God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. 5 And those who accuse their wives and have no witnesses except themselves, let them testify by swearing by Allah four times that he is of the truthful, 6 and the fifth time, that the curse of Allah shall be upon him, if he should be of the liars. 7 The wife shall receive no punishment, if she bears witness four times in the name of God that her husband has lied 8 and a fifth time, that the wrath of God shall be upon her, if he should be of the truthful. 9 And had it not been for the Grace of Allah and His Mercy on you (He would have hastened the punishment upon you)! And that Allah is the One Who accepts repentance, the All-Wise. 10