al-Nūr 24:2

Al-zāniyatu wa'l-zānī fa'jlidū kulla wāḥidin minhumā miʾata jalda, wa lā taʾkhudhkum bihimā raʾfatun fī dīni'llāhi in kuntum tuʾminūna bi'llāhi wa'l-yawmi'l-ākhir, wa'l-yashhad ʿadhābahumā ṭāʾifatun mina'l-muʾminīn

"The woman who commits adultery and the man who commits adultery — flog each of them a hundred strokes. And let no pity for them take hold of you in the religion of God, if you believe in God and in the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment."

This verse and those that follow gave rise to one of the broadest discussions in classical jurisprudence. In this section the disagreements of that discussion are transmitted, none is preferred, and none is binding. How the penalty is to be applied today, whether it is to be applied, and the current controversies around it are not the subject of this text.

What will be treated is the language of the verse: the roots of the words, their forms, their order, and the verse-ending.

The verse begins with al-zāniyatu — the feminine first.

This is not the usual order in the Qurʾān's verses of ruling. In the fourth verse the ruling on slander comes with alladhīna yarmūn (masculine plural); the ruling on theft at al-Māʾida 5/38 comes with al-sāriqu wa'l-sāriqa (the masculine first).

In the classical commentaries several explanations are given for this order:

I prefer none of them, and none is binding. The one certain thing is that the order stands so in the text.

But an observation about the word order can be made, and I record it as my own reading: the verse names the two parties separately and equally, and then says the equality once more with kulla wāḥidin minhumā — "each of them". That the ruling is bound to both parties in the same measure is thus said three times: the two nouns, the dual pronoun (minhumā), and kulla wāḥidin.

Root: ج-ل-د. And the concrete sense of the root is directly the name of an organ.

جِلْد (jild) — skin. In Turkish the borrowed word cilt means both skin and the leather binding of a book, and from there a volume of a book as well — each part of a book bound in leather.

And the verb is derived from the noun: jalada — to strike the skin. The literal sense of the verb, then, is not "to punish" but "to strike his skin".

The derivatives of the root:

The choice of the word is worth recording, and this is one of the most important points in the language of the verse.

In Arabic the general verb for striking is ḍaraba. The verse does not use it. The verb it uses carries in its own name where the stroke will reach: the skin.

In the classical juristic literature a conclusion has been drawn from this word, and I transmit it as it is transmitted: because the verb points to the skin, it has been said that the penalty must not go past the skin — that is, that the stroke must not maim or do lasting harm. Over the detail of the application — the force of the stroke, the kind of instrument, which parts of the body are to be avoided, the case of the sick and of the pregnant — there is broad disagreement among the schools, and none of it is given here as a ruling.

And the root's second cluster of senses stands in an interesting place: jalad — endurance; tajallud — fortitude. From the same root come both "to strike the skin" and "to bear up". The connection the lexicographers draw is this: the skin is the body's enduring layer — the first to meet what comes from outside, and the thing that protects what is within.

I record this as an observation about the root; I build no interpretation of the verse upon it.

The verse gives a number: a hundred.

This is the direct counterpart of the verb faraḍnāhā in the first verse. The root ف-ر-ض — to notch, to set a measure. And here the notch is cut: a hundred.

The function of the number is a limit. The penalty is not left indefinite, not left to the discretion of the one who applies it. Not an upper limit but a fixed number is given.

And that the word jaldatan comes in the singular is worth noting: miʾata jalda — "a hundred one stroke". In Arabic the numbers from three to ten take a plural specifier; a hundred takes a singular one. This is a rule of grammar, not a subtlety; but its outcome is worth recording: in saying "a hundred strokes" the sentence leaves the word in the form of a single stroke.

رَأْفَة — root ر-أ-ف. This root was analysed at al-Ḥashr, 59/10, and at al-Ḥadīd, 57/9; I rely on those treatments.

The note there was this, and it sits exactly here:

The lexicographers draw a distinction between raḥma and raʾfa: mercy is general and may sometimes contain severity (as a treatment that gives pain in order to heal a patient); raʾfa is the refusal to give pain at all, the refusal to hurt. The definition recorded in al-Ḥadīd is sharper still: raʾfa is above all the feeling of not being able to bear that another should be harmed.

And the verse's choice of word is built exactly upon this distinction.

What the verse forbids is not mercy. What is forbidden is that raʾfa — the inability to bear witnessing pain — should stop the ruling.

And this distinction agrees with the language of the word elsewhere: the Qurʾān uses raʾfa positively of God and of the Prophet (al-Ḥadīd 57/9, al-Ḥashr 59/10, al-Tawba 9/128). The word, then, is not bad in itself. What is bad is its shifting a measure that has been laid down.

The form of the verb says this too: lā taʾkhudhkum — "let it not take hold of you, let it not seize you". Root أ-خ-ذ: to take, to hold, to seize. Raʾfa is thus pictured here as an agent: something that takes hold of a man and binds his hand.

The sentence does not say "do not pity". It says "let your pity not take hold of you". The feeling is not forbidden; the feeling's stopping the act is forbidden.

I record this distinction as my own reading; its ground is the form of the verb: akhadha — to take hold.

This is the part of the sentence most easily passed over: fī dīni'llāh — "in the religion of God".

The prohibition is not absolute but qualified. It is not said "show no pity anywhere": it is said where the application of a determined ruling is at issue.

And this qualification joins with faraḍnāhā in the first verse. What has been determined stays as the one who determined it determined it. Raʾfa is free in the domains not determined; in what has been determined it cannot alter the measure.

The conditional clause is placed at a noteworthy point. Not after the command of a hundred strokes, but after the qualification that pity must not stop the ruling.

The condition, that is, is tied not to the carrying out of the penalty but to the feeling's not disturbing the measure.

And the particular naming of the Last Day carries a logic: the inability to bear that a ruling should give pain arises from a gaze that stays within this world. The mention of the hereafter lengthens the range of the gaze.

I record this as my own reading; the position of the condition and its content are the wording of the text.

طَآئِفَة — root ط-و-ف: to turn, to go round about a thing. Ṭawāf is from the same root. A ṭāʾifa is the group that goes round a place, that is present there. The word was analysed at al-Ḥujurāt, 49/9 (ṭāʾifatāni mina'l-muʾminīn); I rely on that treatment. The note there: the word states no number, it conveys an indefinite group; in the classical sources broad disagreement is transmitted about its minimum.

And the function of the command here needs dwelling on, because it appears to stand in tension with the sūra as a whole.

From beginning to end the sūra commands covering: do not enter without leave (27), lower your glance (30-31), do not spread what you have heard (15), bind an accusation to four witnesses (4). But here the very opposite is asked: that the penalty be seen.

The explanations widely transmitted in the classical commentaries about the purpose of this command are these:

I impose no preference. But the second explanation's link with what precedes the verse may be recorded: the preceding clause regulated the feeling of the one who applies the penalty (raʾfa). The verse thus limits the applier both from softening and from exceeding the measure: the one by a condition, the other by a witness.

I record this as my own reading.

And there is one further detail in the wording: in saying "let them witness their punishment" the verse says ʿadhābahumā — "their punishment". The word jazāʾ or ḥadd is not used. The weight of the word is not softened.

The juristic discussions arising from this verse are broad. The table below is meant to show the main divisions transmitted in the classical sources. None of them is this text's preference and none is binding. In the detail there are differences of view within each school as well.

This table is not a legal opinion and cannot be read as a guide to practice. The reason it is placed here is the method's rule about disagreement: the disagreement is not concealed, but no preference is imposed.

And one further thing must be recorded: the fourth verse comes immediately after this one and binds the accusation itself to a sanction. The sūra, that is, in laying down the penalty also closes the road that leads to it. This is the most important move in the sūra's arrangement, and it will be taken up in detail at the fourth verse.

What this verse says to the present can be written without entering the debate about penalties and without scolding the reader; what is treated are the words.

One. The general logic of the raʾfa qualification.

The distinction the verse draws — the separating of feeling from measure — is a distinction that works outside the application of a ruling too. When a measure is laid down, what breaks it is most often not ill will but a momentary softening. The verse does not name this a bad thing; its name is raʾfa, and the word is used in the Qurʾān of God as well. All that is said is this: a measure that has been determined is not re-determined according to feeling.

Two. The witness qualification works in two directions.

A sanction applied in the open makes the one who applies it visible too. A penalty applied in secret is a penalty whose measure cannot be checked. The verse's ṭāʾifa qualification can be read for the side of it that secures this — and this reading agrees with what the sūra's later verses repeat: this sūra is from beginning to end about the checking of claims and of power.

Three. And a limit.

From this verse no conclusion follows that "nothing ought to remain hidden"; the rest of the sūra says exactly the reverse. The verse regulates what comes after a ruling has been given. The stage before the ruling — suspicion, accusation, gossip — will be closed off in the sternest terms in the sūra's later verses.