Chapter on the ḥadd for calumny (qadhf)

When a legally accountable person (mukallaf) accuses a muḥṣan of adultery⦗1⦘, he is given eighty lashes if he is free, and forty if he is a slave; one who is only partially manumitted receives a proportionate number. Slandering someone who is not muḥṣan entails discretionary punishment (taʿzīr) rather than the ḥadd, and this is the personal right of the one slandered. In this context, a muḥṣan is a free, Muslim, sane, chaste multazim—one bound by the law—whose age makes sexual intercourse normal; puberty is not a prerequisite.

Explicit calumny includes words like “You adulterer!” or “You sodomite!” Indirect forms include “You whore,” “You depraved woman,” “You wicked woman,” “You have disgraced your husband,” “You have lowered his head,” “You have put horns on him,” and similar phrases. If the speaker explains that he intended something other than sexual misconduct, his explanation is accepted.

If he slanders an entire town or a group of people for whom adultery is ordinarily unthinkable, he is disciplined with taʿzīr.

The ḥadd for calumny is waived by pardon, and it is not enforced unless the victim formally seeks it.