951 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with father and son) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to the two spouses who had invoked liʿān (mutual cursing): “Your reckoning rests with Allah; one of you is lying. You have no claim against her.” The husband then said, “Messenger of Allah, what about the property I gave her?” He replied, “If you have spoken the truth about her, that property remains hers in return for the lawful intimacy you enjoyed with her; but if you have lied about her, that property is even farther from you than she is.” Agreed upon. (1)

Vocabulary
• ḥisābukumā (your reckoning): from ḥāsabahu, muḥāsabah, ḥisāb—“to call someone to account and requite him”; hence ḥisāb means requital.
• lā sabīla laka (you have no claim against her): as-sabīl literally “a path”; here it means “you possess no proof or authority over her.”
• abʿadu laka (farther from you): baʿuda – yabʿud – buʿdan, the opposite of qaruba (to be near); abʿad is the comparative “farther,” plural abāʿid.

Points derived from the ḥadith

1. Of the two spouses who perform liʿān, one must be truthful and the other must be lying, for the husband’s accusation and the wife’s denial cannot both be true.
2. Sharīʿah rulings are based on outward, ascertainable matters—the legal indicators set by revelation—and the judge is not required to go beyond them. As related in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections from Umm Salama, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “You bring your disputes to me, and perhaps one of you is more eloquent in presenting his case than the other, so I judge for him according to what I hear. Whoever, therefore, I award something from his brother’s right, it is only…"