al-Nisāʾ 4:15-16

Wa'llātī yaʾtīna'l-fāḥishata min nisāʾikum fa'stashhidū ʿalayhinna arbaʿatan minkum, fa-in shahidū fa-amsikūhunna fi'l-buyūti ḥattā yatawaffāhunna'l-mawtu aw yajʿala'llāhu lahunna sabīlā · Wa'lladhāni yaʾtiyānihā minkum fa-ādhūhumā, fa-in tābā wa aṣlaḥā fa-aʿriḍū ʿanhumā, inna'llāha kāna Tawwāban Raḥīmā

"Against those of your women who commit indecency, call four witnesses from among you. If they bear witness, keep them in the houses until death takes them or God appoints a way for them. As for the two among you who commit it, cause them hurt. If they repent and set themselves right, turn away from them. God is ever relenting, merciful."

These two verses produced a long discussion in classical jurisprudence and exegesis, and that discussion is connected with Sūrat al-Nūr.

This field was treated in detail in the discussion of al-Nūr 24/2 and 24/4, and it was recorded plainly there: "This verse and those that follow it produced one of the widest discussions in classical jurisprudence. In this section the disagreements within that discussion are transmitted, none of them is preferred and none of them is binding. How the penalty is to be applied today, whether it is to be applied at all, and the current debates around this are not the subject of this text."

The same record holds here. I rely on that treatment and do not repeat what was treated there. Only the points peculiar to these two verses will be treated here.

The condition of four witnesses was treated in detail in the discussion of al-Nūr 24/4 and 24/13. The record made there was this, and it sits here: by tying the accusation itself to four witnesses, it is in practice closed off.

And there is a detail in the word order here: fa'stashhidū — Form X. The root ش-ه-د. Form X states asking, demanding: "demand that witnesses be produced."

The verse, that is, places the accuser directly under an obligation. The accusation gives rise to the demand for witnesses.

The most striking side of the verse is that it carries a clause showing the ruling to be provisional in itself: "or until God appoints a way for them."

The explanation widely transmitted in the classical commentaries about this clause is the following, and I relate it as it is transmitted: this is the announcement, in the verse's own wording, that the ruling is provisional; a "way" was opened by a later regulation.

There are differing views in the classical literature as to which verse or which regulation this was. I impose no preference and issue no legal ruling.

What follows from the wording of the verse and is not in dispute is this: the ruling carries within itself a clause of termination. This is not a structure often met with in the Qurʾān, and it is a datum of the text.

The sixteenth verse provides for a measure against two persons but does not define the measure: fa-ādhūhumā — "cause them hurt".

The root أ-ذ-ي: to injure, to trouble. The word was treated at al-Aḥzāb 33/57-58; I rely on that treatment.

And that the word is left without a measure must be recorded: in Sūrat al-Nūr there was a number (miʾata jalda); here there is no number. It is transmitted in the classical commentaries that this difference has to do with the ruling's being laid down by stages.

In this matter I impose no preference and issue no legal ruling.

And this is the clause in the block that most needs to be dwelt on, because it comes immediately after the clause of the ruling.

That the three verbs work together must be recorded: repentance alone is not enough, iṣlāḥ is asked for beside it; and in return the community is asked to close the matter.

The expression فَأَعْرِضُوا۟ عَنْهُمَا does not say "forgive"; it says "turn away, do not press it". What is commanded, that is, is that the matter not be kept on the agenda.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verb itself. And it looks in the same direction as the measure treated throughout al-Nūr: as the sūra closes a matter, so it closes the talking about it.

This root is one of the busiest in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, and its places can be counted:

Four of the five places are where a dispute comes to an end.

I record this as my own reading: the sūra tends to close its rulings not with a sanction but with setting right. This will be shown separately in the discussion of the thirty-fifth verse.