the harm they cause. In general, the benefit of making an offender’s act known outweighs the benefit of concealing it. Hence, two witnesses are accepted in such cases, and the fixed penalty may be imposed on the basis of a single confession. Sexual immorality is different: by consensus, it can be established only through four witnesses, and, according to many scholars, through confession only if the offender confesses (1) four times.

A man is harmed when his wife is accused of sexual immorality (2), just as he is harmed when she actually commits it. The Lawgiver therefore instituted mutual imprecation for a husband who accuses his wife, allowing the fixed penalty for slander to be averted from him (3) by this procedure—an option unavailable to anyone else. If a man accuses a chaste woman, he must either substantiate his accusation through testimony or incur the fixed penalty (4), should the accused demand it. Hence, if a woman who is not herself legally protected against slander is accused while her husband is so protected, the accuser must, according to one of the two scholarly opinions, incur the fixed penalty for slander. This is also one of the two reports from Ahmad.

These legal and customary considerations demonstrate that the harm a man suffers from an accusation (5) of sexual immorality against his wife is greater than the harm he suffers when she is taken from her home (6) for what the person taking her believes to be a public interest. Moreover, Talhah and al-Zubayr did not take her from her home. Rather, when Uthmān—may Allah be pleased with him—was killed, Aisha was in Mecca [and was not in Medina] (7) and did not witness his killing. Talhah and al-Zubayr then went and met her in Mecca.