, for whoever reveals his sin to us, we shall enforce Allah’s Book against him.” In the Sahīh:

“All of my community will be pardoned except those who publicize their sins. One form of publicizing sin is for a man to spend the night having committed a sin that Allah has concealed, then himself remove Allah’s concealment.”

When a servant’s sin becomes public, his repentance must likewise become public. Repentance is not evident while he denies the sin, for the one who denies it claims that he has not sinned. Thus, the early generations applied this to anyone who openly manifested religious innovation or wickedness: the former displays the condition of those who have gone astray, and the latter that of those who have incurred wrath. Such censure includes barring him—where one has the power—from leadership, adjudication, issuing fatwas, transmitting reports, and giving testimony. Where one lacks that power, one should do whatever is within one’s ability.

As for His words:

“The two among you who commit it: punish them both.”

He commanded that both be punished, without making this conditional upon calling four witnesses, as He did concerning the women and their confinement to their homes. Nor did He command it here as He did there. This is not a case of interpreting an unrestricted text in light of a restricted one, since that requires the ruling to be the same, as in the case of freeing a slave. When the rulings share a general category but differ in their specific form, scholars disagree about this. Examples include mentioning the hands without qualification in dry ablution, while specifying washing up to the elbows in ablution with water; and mentioning sixty needy people without qualification when prescribing feeding, while stipulating that a slave to be freed must be a believer—even though both are acts of worship involving wealth, intended to benefit people.

The Muslims among the Companions and their successors did not interpret the unrestricted wording in light of the restricted wording in His statement:

“And the mothers of your wives, and your stepdaughters under your care, born of your wives