she says four times: “I testify by Allah that he has certainly lied in accusing me of zina.”

However, there is nothing in the Quran to indicate that this is required. Thus, if she were to say only, “I testify by Allah that he is indeed among the liars,” it would be valid according to the stronger view. According to the madhhab, however, she must explicitly state that he is lying in accusing her of zina. They said: We stipulated this so that she cannot resort to equivocation and say, “I testify by Allah that he is lying,” meaning with regard to something other than this matter. Thus, she must say, “in accusing me of zina.”

The answer to this is that equivocation is of no avail in a dispute, for the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Your oath is according to what your opponent understands it to mean.” (1) Therefore, equivocation carries no weight. Accordingly, if she confined herself to the wording found in the verse—“I testify by Allah that he is indeed among the liars”—that would suffice. This is the view chosen by Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him), for if it is not found in the Quran, how can we make it binding and say: If it is not done in this manner, the mutual imprecation must be repeated; or, if it is not done in this manner, the legal consequences of the mutual imprecation do not take effect?! For the apparent meaning of the author’s words is that if any condition is lacking, the mutual imprecation cannot take place between them, and its legal rulings are not established.

His statement, “Then, on the fifth time, she says: ‘May the wrath of Allah be upon her if he is telling the truth’”: Wrath is more severe than a curse, because wrath entails banishment and something further. She is required to invoke that which is more severe because her husband is more likely than she is to be telling the truth, and because she knows the reality of the matter—that she has committed zina, for example—so if she denies what she knows