Light (Al-Noor)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ This is a chapter which We have sent down and appointed; and in it We have sent down clear verses in order that you will remember. 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 And those who cast it up on women in wedlock, and then bring not four witnesses, scourge them with eighty stripes, and do not accept any testimony of theirs ever; those -- they are the ungodly, 4 except those among them that afterwards repent and mend their ways. Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. 5 Those who accuse their wives and do not have any witnesses except themselves, should swear four times in the name of God, the testimony of each such person being that he is speaking the truth, 6 And yet a fifth, invoking the curse of Allah on him if he is of those who lie. 7 And it shall avert the chastisement from her if she testify four times, bearing Allah to witness that he is most surely one of the liars; 8 And a fifth (time) that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he speaketh truth. 9 And were it not for Allah's grace upon you and His mercy-- and that Allah is Oft-returning (to mercy), Wise! 10