Verse. 508

٤ - ٱلنِّسَاء

4 - An-Nisa

وَالّٰتِيْ يَاْتِيْنَ الْفَاحِشَۃَ مِنْ نِّسَاۗىِٕكُمْ فَاسْتَشْہِدُوْا عَلَيْہِنَّ اَرْبَعَۃً مِّنْكُمْ۝۰ۚ فَاِنْ شَہِدُوْا فَاَمْسِكُوْھُنَّ فِي الْبُيُوْتِ حَتّٰى يَتَوَفّٰىھُنَّ الْمَوْتُ اَوْ يَجْعَلَ اللہُ لَھُنَّ سَبِيْلًا۝۱۵
Waallatee yateena alfahishata min nisaikum faistashhidoo AAalayhinna arbaAAatan minkum fain shahidoo faamsikoohunna fee albuyooti hatta yatawaffahunna almawtu aw yajAAala Allahu lahunna sabeelan

English

Ahmed Ali

If any of your women is guilty of unnatural offence, bring four of your witnesses to give evidence; if they testify against them, retain them in the houses until death overtakes them or God provides some other way for them.

15

Tafseer

'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī

تفسير : (as for those of your women) your free, married women (who are guilty of lewdness) i.e. of fornication, (call to witness) that they were caught red-handed in the act (four of you against them) four of your free men. (and if they testify) to the truth of the allegation (then confine them to the houses) keep them in prison (until death take them) until they die in prison (or (until) allah appoint for them a way) out by means of stoning. imprisoning a free, married woman who commits fornication until she dies in prison was later abrogated by stoning.

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī

تفسير : as for those of your women who commit lewdness, adultery, call four, muslim men, of you to witness against them; and if they witness, against them such [lewdness], then detain them in their houses, and prevent them from mixing with people, until, the angels of, death take them or, until, god appoints for them a way, out of it. this was stipulated for them at the very beginning of islam, but then a way out was appointed for them through [the stipulation] that the virgin should receive a hundred lashes and be banished for a year, and the married woman be stoned. the prescribed punishment was explained thus in the hadīth, ‘come listen to me! come listen to me! god has now made a way out for them’, as reported by muslim.