An-Nur: (10) And were it not for the bounty of Allah...

(And were it not for the bounty of Allah upon you and His mercy, and that Allah is Accepting of repentance, Wise)

This is a shift towards addressing those who accuse and those who are accused, using the method of taghlib (dominance/generalization), in order to fulfill the right of the station of gratitude. The response to "were it not" (law la) is omitted to emphasize its magnitude, to the extent that it is as if no expression can encompass its explanation; such an omission is common in their speech. Jarir said: "The censurers lied, had they seen our encampment at Haziz Rameh, with the riding beasts grazing..." And among their proverbs: "If it were a woman with bracelets, she would have slapped me."

It is as if it were said: "Were it not for His bounty—Exalted be He—upon you, and His mercy—Glorified be He—and that He, the Exalted, is excessive in accepting repentance and wise in all His actions and rulings—among which is the ruling of li'an (mutual cursing) He legislated for you—it would have been something that the scope of explanation could not encompass."

Among these [acts of wisdom] is that if He had not legislated this for them, the hadd punishment for slander would have become incumbent upon the husband, even though it is apparent that he is truthful, for he is most knowledgeable of his wife's condition and would not fabricate against her, due to their shared disgrace. After legislating it for them, if He had made his testimonies binding the hadd for adultery upon her, looking into her side would have been missed; and if He had made her testimonies binding the hadd for slander upon him, looking into his side would have been missed. There is no doubt that all of these scenarios would deviate from the paths of wisdom, bounty, and mercy.

Thus, He made the testimony of each of them—despite the certainty that one of them is lying—definitively warding off the worldly calamity directed at them. The liar among them has been afflicted, within the folds of his testimonies, with a torment more complete and overwhelming than that which was warded off from him. There is in this, of the profound rulings of the Wise and the traces of bounty and mercy, that which is not hidden.

As for the truthful one, it is apparent. As for the liar, it is the granting of respite, concealing him in this world, warding off the hadd from him, and exposing him to repentance, as is indicated by the reference to the title of His repentance-accepting nature. So Glorified is He; how great is His affair, how vast His mercy, and how precise His wisdom! This was stated by Shaykh al-Islam.

From Ibn Salam, the "bounty" is interpreted as Islam; it is not hidden that this is not what the context requires. From Abu Muslim, it is that the prohibition of adultery is included in the "bounty." This would be sound if the sentence were made a tailpiece (tadhyil) for all the preceding verses, despite the remoteness [of such a construction] in it.