Tafseer of The Light · An-Noor · 24:8
But it will prevent punishment from her if she gives four testimonies [swearing] by Allah that indeed, he is of the liars.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
Allah the Exalted means by His word وَيَدْرَأُ عَنْهَا الْعَذَابَ ("and it averts the punishment from her"): it averts the prescribed penalty (al-ḥadd) from her.
The scholars differed over the nature of the punishment that Allah means in this place — that her four testimonies exempt her from it. Some held — in accordance with what we have said concerning this — that the penalty is one hundred lashes if she is a virgin, or stoning (al-rajm) if she is married and has previously been with a man.
Others said: it concerns imprisonment. They held: the only thing obligatory upon her, when she does not give the four testimonies after the husband's four testimonies and his elaborate oath of mutual cursing (al-liʿān), is imprisonment — not the prescribed penalty.
Our position, that what is obligatory upon her — when she refuses to pronounce the mutual cursing after the husband's mutual cursing — is the prescribed penalty that we have described, we base on the analogy (qiyās) with the consensus of all that the penalty, when it is averted from the husband by the four testimonies — in confirmation of his truthfulness in what he accused her of — becomes obligatory upon her. Allah has made his four oaths and his oath of mutual cursing at the fifth a way out for him from the prescribed penalty due to her on account of his accusation against her — just as He made the four witnesses a way out for him in the same matter, by which the penalty was averted from him. Likewise, when the penalty is averted from him by that, his penalty ought to be made obligatory — without distinction. We have discussed the argumentation concerning this at length in the chapter on mutual cursing (al-liʿān) in our work entitled [Laṭīf al-qawl fī sharāʾiʿ al-Islām] — which is sufficient to make it unnecessary to repeat it in this place.
His word أَنْ تَشْهَدَ أَرْبَعَ شَهَادَاتٍ بِاللَّهِ ("that she testify four times by Allah"): that is to say: the punishment is averted from her by her swearing four oaths by Allah: that her husband — who accused her of the obscenity (al-fāḥisha) of which he accused her — is among the liars in what he has accused her of regarding fornication (al-zinā).
