Tafsir of An-Nur 24:6

"And those who accuse their wives"—this is an explanation of the ruling specific to those who accuse their own wives, and it is a abrogator for the generality of [the ruling regarding] chaste women. Before the revelation of this verse, they understood from the verse "And those who accuse chaste women..." [24:4] that the ruling for one who accuses a foreign woman and one who accuses his wife was the same.

Abu Dawud and a group [of scholars] narrated from Ibn Abbas, who said: "When the verse, 'And those who accuse chaste women...' was revealed, Sa’d ibn Ubada, who was the chief of the Ansar, said: 'Was it revealed like this, O Messenger of Allah?' The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: 'O assembly of the Ansar, do you not hear what your chief says?' They replied: 'O Messenger of Allah, do not blame him; he is a man of great protective jealousy. By Allah, he never married a woman except that she was a virgin, and he never divorced a woman such that any of us dared to marry her out of the intensity of his jealousy.' Sa’d then said: 'By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, I know that it is the truth and that it is from Allah, the Exalted, but I was astonished. If I were to find a wretched woman being engaged in sexual intercourse by a man, I would not be able to provoke him or stir him until I brought four witnesses. By Allah, I would not bring them until he had finished his need.'

He said: 'They did not wait long until Hilal ibn Umayya arrived—he being one of the three who were forgiven [by Allah]—and he came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: 'O Messenger of Allah, I came to my wife at night and found a man with her. I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears.' The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) disliked what he brought and it weighed heavily upon him. The Ansar gathered and said: 'We have been afflicted by what Sa’d ibn Ubada said. Now the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) will flog Hilal ibn Umayya, and his testimony will be nullified among the Muslims.' Hilal said: 'By Allah, I hope that the Exalted will provide me a way out of this.' He then said: 'O Messenger of Allah, I see the distress you are in due to what I have brought, and Allah, the Exalted, knows that I am truthful.' By Allah, just as the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was about to order his flogging, the revelation descended upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Whenever the revelation descended upon him (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), they would recognize it by the flushing of his skin. They refrained from him until he finished the revelation. Then, 'And those who accuse their wives...' [24:6] was revealed. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was relieved, and he said: 'Rejoice, O Hilal! I was hoping for this from my Lord.' He (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) then said: 'Send for her.' She came, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) recited [the verses] to both of them, reminded them, and informed them that the punishment of the Hereafter is more severe than the punishment of this world. Hilal said: 'By Allah, O Messenger of Allah, I have told the truth about her.' She said: 'He lied.' The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: 'Perform li’an (imprecation) between them.'"

The hadith continues. From this—and likewise from another narration mentioned by al-Bukhari in his Sahih, as well as al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah—it is known that the story of Hilal is the reason for the revelation of the verse. It has been said that it was revealed regarding ‘Asim ibn ‘Adi, and it has been said regarding ‘Uwaymir ibn Nasr al-‘Ajlani, and there is that in al-Bukhari which testifies to this. In fact, al-Suhayli said that this is the correct view and ascribed the other to error. What is witnessed, as stated in al-Bahr, is that the incident of Hilal preceded the incident of ‘Uwaymir. Abu Ya’la and Ibn Marduyah narrated from Anas that he said: "The first li’an in Islam occurred between Hilal ibn Umayya and his wife."

Al-Khafaji conveyed a difficulty here from al-Subki, who said: "It is a difficult problem raised regarding the verse of li’an, theft, and adultery: what the conditional sentence contains is a text on the cause (‘illiyyah) with the letter fa, but it is possible [to interpret it] without it. By construing it in a manner where the event it contains is future, not past, its ruling does not apply to what preceded it, and it does not encompass the cause of revelation." He [al-Subki] countered this by saying: "There is no difficulty in it; rather, it is easier than drinking cold water in the heat of summer. For this and its like means: 'If you wish to know this ruling, then it is such-and-such.' Thus, the future [aspect] is the knowledge of the ruling and its execution, and it is future in the cause of revelation and elsewhere. The evidence that this is the intended meaning is that it was revealed regarding a past matter for which a ruling was sought to be clarified. Hence they said: 'The inclusion of the cause of revelation is definitive.'"

There is no need to argue that the condition can enter upon the past, nor that what the condition contains is not required to be identical to its explicit statement in every respect, nor that the entry of what was mentioned is through the implication of the text (dalalat al-nass), for that is invalid here.

The meaning here is similar to what passed: those who accuse their wives—those with whom the marriage has been consummated and those with whom it has not—as well as those in a revocable divorce, of adultery.

"And they have no witnesses"—four [witnesses] to testify to what they accused them of regarding adultery. It was read as takun (with the ta). The reading of the majority is more eloquent. "Except themselves"—this is a substitute (badal) for "witnesses" because the statement is not affirmative (mujib), and in such cases substitution is the chosen path. Or illa is in the sense of ghayr (other than), an adjective for "witnesses," its inflection appearing on what follows because it is in the form of a particle, as they said regarding the relative pronoun al entering upon active participles, for example. By including them among the witnesses, there is an indication—as has been said—from the beginning that their statement is not entirely ignored, and it organizes them into the string of testimony. By this, the beauty of attributing the testimony to them increased in His saying, "Then the testimony of one of them"—meaning the testimony of each one of them. This is the subject (mubtada’), and His saying, the Almighty, "four testimonies" is its predicate. That is, their legitimate testimony is four testimonies.

"By Allah" is connected to "testimonies." Some permitted connecting it to "testimony" (shahadah), but this was countered by the fact that it would then necessitate separating the verbal noun from its operative factor by an extraneous element, which is the predicate. You know that there is discussion regarding whether the predicate being extraneous is [inadmissible], and that some grammarians permitted separation absolutely, while others permitted it when the operating factor is a prepositional phrase, as is the case here.

The majority read "four" (arba'a) in the accusative case as a verbal noun (masdariyyah), and the operator for it is "testimony," which is the predicate of a deleted subject—that is, "the obligation is testimony" or a subject whose predicate is deleted—that is, "upon them is testimony," or "the testimony of one of them is four testimonies by Allah, [which is] obligatory or sufficient." There is no disagreement on the permissibility of connecting the prepositional phrase in this reading to either "testimony" or "testimonies." The disagreement only exists regarding the first [reading].

"That he is indeed among the truthful"—that is, regarding what he accused her of, namely adultery. The original [structure] is anna (that), so the preposition is deleted, inna is broken [with an i], and the operator is suspended from it with the lam for emphasis. Suspension is not restricted to verbs of the heart (af’al al-qulub), but also occurs in that which functions like them, and from this is testimony, because it conveys certainty. It is permitted that the sentence is an answer to an oath, based on the fact that "testimony" here is in the sense of an oath, to the point that al-Raghib said that it is understood from it even if "by Allah" is not mentioned. The verification of this will come, if Allah the Exalted wills.