Chapter on the Prescribed Punishment for False Accusation of Unlawful Intercourse

If a legally responsible person falsely accuses a chaste person, he is to be flogged eighty lashes if he is free, and forty if he is a slave.

His statement, “the prescribed punishment for false accusation”: “prescribed punishment” is in a genitive construct with “false accusation.” Here, this construct attributes a thing to its cause; that is, the chapter on the prescribed punishment caused by false accusation.

In its original sense, qadhf means casting or throwing. What is meant here is accusing someone of unlawful intercourse or sodomy, such as saying, “You fornicator,” “You sodomite,” or, “You are a fornicator,” “You are a sodomite,” and the like.

The ruling on false accusation is that it is prohibited. Indeed, it is among the major sins when the person accused is chaste. The wisdom behind its prohibition is to safeguard people’s honor from violation and to protect their reputations from defilement. This is among the wisest of rulings, for if people were allowed to malign, abuse, and insult one another, enmity and hatred would arise, and perhaps devastating wars would result from such matters. Yet, in order to preserve people’s honor, protect it, and safeguard the reputation of the Muslims, the Sacred Law has prohibited false accusation and made it liable to a worldly punishment. Allah says:

“Indeed, those who accuse chaste, unsuspecting believing women are cursed in this world and the Hereafter, and they will have a tremendous punishment.” [al-Nur: 23]

He has thus attached two grave consequences to it:

First: being cursed in this world and the Hereafter—we seek Allah’s protection.

Second: the tremendous punishment.