Light (Al-Noor)
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
۞ This is a Surah which We have sent down and We have made it mandatory, and We have sent down clear Commandments in it so that you may learn lessons. 1 The fornicatress and the fornicator -- scourge each one of them a hundred stripes, and in the matter of God's religion let no tenderness for them seize you if you believe in God and the Last Day; and let a party of the believers witness their chastisement. 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 accuse chaste women and do not bring four witnesses to testify – punish them with eighty lashes and do not ever accept their testimony; and it is they who are the wicked. 4 excepting [from this interdict] only those who afterwards repent and made amends: for, behold, God is much forgiving, a dispenser of grace. 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 a fifth time, that the curse of God shall be upon him, if he should be of the liars. 7 The woman's punishment can be averted if she swears four times by God as testimony that her husband is a liar, 8 And the fifth (oath) should be that she solemnly invokes the wrath of Allah on herself if (her accuser) is telling the truth. 9 If it were not for Allah's grace and mercy on you, and that Allah is Oft-Returning, full of Wisdom,- (Ye would be ruined indeed). 10