Light (Al-Noor)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ (This is) a chapter which We have revealed and made obligatory and in which We have revealed clear communications that you may be mindful. 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 [Both are equally guilty:] the adulterer couples with none other than an adulteress - that is, a woman who accords [to her own lust] a place side by side with God; and with the adulteress couples none other than an adulterer - that is, a man who accords [to his own lust] a place side by side with God: and this is forbidden unto the believers. 3 And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses, flog them, (giving) eighty stripes, and do not admit any evidence from them ever; and these it is that are the transgressors, 4 except that of those who afterwards repent and reform themselves; God is All-forgiving and All-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 a fifth time, that the curse of God shall be upon him, if he should be of the liars. 7 But the punishment will be averted from her if she swears four times that he is of the liars, 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 And had it not been for the grace of Allah and His mercy unto you, and that Allah is Clement, Wise, (ye had been undone). 10