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Where false accusations and similar offenses do not admit of retaliation in kind, they are subject to punishment by other means.

Among these is the prescribed punishment for accusing someone of unlawful sexual intercourse, established by the Quran, the Sunnah, and scholarly consensus. Allah Most High says:

“Those who accuse chaste women and then fail to produce four witnesses—lash them eighty times, and never accept their testimony thereafter. They are the defiantly disobedient, except those who repent afterward and reform; surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

If a free person accuses a chaste person of unlawful sexual intercourse or sodomy, he incurs the prescribed punishment for such an accusation: eighty lashes. If he accuses him of something else, he is subject to discretionary punishment. This prescribed punishment is a right belonging to the accused and, by agreement of the jurists, may be carried out only at his request. If he pardons the accuser, the punishment lapses according to the majority of scholars, because the individual’s right predominates, as with retaliation and property claims.

Another view holds that it does not lapse, giving precedence to Allah’s right because the punishment is not equivalent in kind to the offense, as with the other prescribed punishments.

The prescribed punishment for such an accusation is required only when the accused is chaste—that is, a free, chaste Muslim. As for someone notorious for sexual immorality, his accuser is not subject to this prescribed punishment. The same applies to someone who accuses a disbeliever or a slave;