If he says, “You adulterer,” this may likewise be an indirect expression, or it may be an explicit accusation, based on the Prophet’s statement, “The adulterer is entitled only to the stone.”
There are two transmitted views from Aḥmad concerning indirect accusations: does such an expression entail the fixed penalty, like an explicit accusation? According to one report, it does entail the fixed penalty, just like an explicit accusation. According to the other, it does not entail the fixed penalty unless he admits that he intended it as a slanderous accusation.
An indirect accusation is for a person, in anger and in response to someone who has insulted him, to say: “O lawful son of a lawful man! You were created from lawful seed. You are not a fornicator, nor is your mother a fornicatrix, and people do not know you for committing zina.” It also includes what a man might say to his wife: “You have disgraced me, covered my head with shame, made me a cuckold, saddled me with children by other men, and lowered my standing,” or similar expressions.
If he says, “O son of two adulterers,” he has slandered both his parents, and the fixed penalty is imposed on him on their behalf if they both demand it. If the person who was slandered dies, the fixed penalty is waived from the slanderer if the victim had not demanded it; but if he had demanded it, it is not waived.
If a person slanders someone who is already dead, do his heirs acquire the right to demand the fixed penalty for slander? Aḥmad’s associates held differing views. Abū Bakr said in his Book of Disagreement: “The heir does not have the right to make such a demand, just as when someone slanders a living person who dies before making the demand.” Al-Khiraqī said: “If a man slanders his mother—whether she is a deceased Muslim or a disbeliever, free or enslaved—the slanderer is subjected to the fixed penalty if her son, being free and Muslim, demands it.”
Thus, he affirmed the heir’s right to demand the fixed penalty for slander, because in this case the right was established for the heir from the outset. For this reason, we take into account the heir’s protected status rather than that of the deceased, since the slander ultimately impugns the heir’s lineage.
If the person who was slandered wishes to settle the fixed penalty for slander in exchange for money, this is not permitted. If the slanderer is not subjected to the fixed penalty before the person slandered commits zina, the slander is not thereby nullified. If a man accuses his wife of zina, he is subjected to the fixed penalty on her account unless he performs liʿān against her.
Liʿān consists in the husband saying, in the congregational mosque, on or beside the minbar, in the presence of the judge and at least four witnesses: “I testify by Allah that I am among the truthful concerning my accusation that this wife of mine committed zina with so-and-so, and that this child is the product of zina and is not mine”—if he wishes to disavow a child. He repeats this four times, then says the following on the fifth occasion: “May Allah’s curse be upon me if I am among the liars concerning my accusation that she committed zina with so-and-so.”
If he has named the man with whom she committed zina and said, “This child is the product of zina; he is not mine,” then, when he says this, he has completed his liʿān, and the fixed penalty for slander is thereby waived from him.