The second: the rejection of testimony.
The third: being deemed defiantly disobedient.
Then He says:
“Except those who repent.” [al-Nur: 5]
Does this exception remove all three rulings, only the final ruling, or the final ruling along with the one preceding it? As for the final one, it undoubtedly does: if they repent from false accusation, the description of defiantly disobedient is removed from them and they return to uprightness. There is no doubt about this, since the exception applies to the nearest preceding clause, and that has occurred.
Some scholars have said that it applies to the final ruling and the one before it: if he repents and recants, his testimony is accepted. As for the first ruling, it is not lifted by repentance according to scholarly consensus—though some have said that, if we consider it a right belonging to Allah and he repents before he is apprehended, it is waived. Thus, they make the exception apply to all three.
His statement, “and if he is a slave, forty,” means that if he is a slave, he is to be given forty lashes. This is the second category of the false accuser’s punishment. They said: because a prescribed punishment is halved for a slave. The evidence for this has preceded: Allah Most High says:
“And if they commit a shameful deed, then they are liable to half the punishment prescribed for free chaste women.” [al-Nisa: 25]
False accusation carries a prescribed punishment, so it is halved just as the prescribed punishment for fornication is halved. Thus, giving the slave forty lashes is based on analogy.
Some scholars have said that, whether he is free or a slave, he is to be given eighty lashes, because the verse is general and the right belongs to the person falsely accused. A person accused of fornication has his honor defiled, whether the accuser is free or a slave; this is evident. The prescribed punishment for fornication, however, is Allah’s right, and the gravity and heinousness of fornication differ in the case of a free person and a slave, so its punishment differs. Here, on the other hand, the harm falls upon the person falsely accused,