Chapter: The ḥadd for Slanderous Accusation (qadhf)

If a man openly accuses a chaste man or a chaste woman of illicit sexual intercourse (zinā) and the person accused demands the legal penalty, the judge administers eighty lashes to the slanderer if he is free, distributing the strokes over his body. He is not stripped of his garments, though any fur coat or padded clothing is removed. If the slanderer is a slave, he is lashed forty times.

For the purpose of qadhf, “chastity” (iḥṣān) means that the person accused is free, sane, adult, Muslim, and known to abstain from fornication.

Whoever denies another’s lineage by saying, “You are not your father’s son,” or, “Son of an adulteress,” while the mother—now deceased—was chaste, is subject to the ḥadd if the son requests it. No one may seek the ḥadd on behalf of a deceased person except someone whose own lineage is impugned by the slander.

If the person accused is chaste, his non-Muslim son and his slave may demand the ḥadd, but a slave may not demand it against his master for slandering the slave’s free mother.

If the slanderer confesses and then retracts, the retraction is not accepted.

Whoever says to an Arab, “O Nabatean,” is not liable to the ḥadd. One who says to a man, “O son of water from the sky,” is likewise not considered a slanderer; nor is the person who attributes him to his paternal uncle, maternal uncle, or his mother’s husband.

If someone has actually engaged in forbidden intercourse outside his lawful ownership, the one who slanders him is not punished. Likewise, the person who slanders a woman who has undergone the procedure of liʿān concerning a child is not subject to the ḥadd.

Whoever accuses a male or female slave, or a non-Muslim, of zinā, or accuses a Muslim