Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Adultery and Fornication

Nadia Abu-Zahra, "Adultery and Fornication" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

The qurʾānic word zinā (elsewhere more commonly zināʾ) means sexual intercourse outside the institutions of marriage and concubinage. q 17:32 characterizes this behavior as a fāḥisha, i.e. an obscene act of transgression against God from which a Muslim should refrain (cf. q 25:68). These transgressions together with their specified punishment are called ḥudūd (sing. ḥadd, lit. limit, boundary; see boundaries and precepts) and also include associating others with God and homicide. The Ḥanafite jurist al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370/981) explains that adultery and fornication are transgressions because of the social chaos they create. The patrilineal descent of the offspring of such unions is unidentified. Thus, his right to inherit from the father is denied and he cannot know his patrilineal maḥārim, i.e. the relatives with whom sexual intercourse is considered incest (Aḥkām, iii, 200; see family; inheritance). It is God who guides people to avoid this sin, as in the story of Joseph (q.v.), where God’s intervention saved him from giving in to Potiphar’s wife (q 12:24). Prayers also help people to refrain from committing such acts (q 29:45).

q 4:15 commands that women who commit an obscene act of transgression — understood here to be either adultery or fornication — witnessed by four witnesses, be confined in their home until death or until «God makes a way for them.» q 4:16 orders that both participants be lightly punished, but if they repent and reform, they are to be left alone. Most interpreters maintain that these two verses were later abrogated (see abrogation) by q 24:2 (e.g. Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām ii, 105-6), which stipulates that the punishment for adultery and forni- cation, if witnessed by four competent men (q 24:4), is one hundred lashes. (On the other hand, some who did not acknowledge the existence of abrogation in the Qurʾān believed that q 4:15-16 refer to homosexuality.) The flogging is to be administered in public and the spectators are warned against misplaced compassion. q 34:3 stipulates that these individuals will be allowed to marry only those who have committed similar wrongs and polytheists. The punishment of an adulterous or fornicating slave is half of that of a free woman (q 4:25). A divorced wife guilty of proven adultery may be turned out of her home during the three months during which she would otherwise be entitled to remain there (ʿidda, q 65:1; see maintenance and upkeep; waiting period). The Qurʾān does not specify the marital status of the culprits eligible for flogging, but the jurists and interpreters (e.g. Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, xviii, 46-8) understood it to refer exclusively to non-muḥsan individuals — essentially adults who have never experienced sexual intercourse within a legitimate relationship. The practice of stoning (q.v.) muḥsan adulterers and fornicators is stipulated in the prophetic ḥadīth, but not in the Qurʾān. Schacht (Zināʾ, 1227-8) doubted that the Prophet ever ordered this punishment.

The qurʾānic teachings and the prophetic ḥadīth make it practically impossible to prove adultery. In the first place, in practice it would be difficult to procure the testimony of four men who witnessed the act of penetration. Furthermore, inquiry into the matter and questioning the culprits is forbidden because prying into people’s concealed actions is unlawful. The word of a husband who accuses his spouse of adultery, but lacks the corroborating witnesses, is acceptable, provided that he swears four times that he is telling the truth. In the fifth oath (q.v.) he invokes God’s curse on himself if he is lying (see curse). The wife averts the punishment if she swears to her innocence four times, followed by a solemn oath that her husband is telling a lie and invokes God’s wrath (see anger) on herself if her husband is telling the truth (q 24:6-10). This procedure is called liʿān, related to laʿna, «to curse.» The person who voluntarily confesses adultery must repeat his confession four times and even then it may later be withdrawn. Persistent admission of sin and demand for punishment indicate a desire for atonement for the sin committed. Repentance exonerates the culprit from punishment. Inasmuch as adultery and fornication constitute serious offences, q 24:4 prescribes eighty lashes for those who accuse women of adultery without the necessary proof and forbids that their testimony ever again be accepted. Some commentators believed that this revelation was occasioned by a false accusation lodged against ʿĀʾisha (q.v.), one of the Prophet’s wives (see wives of the prophet).

It should be noted that qurʾānic teaching emphasizes that Muslims should refrain from abominable thoughts and desires (q 6:151). However, if major sins are avoided, an adulterous thought (lamam) is not punishable (q 53:32). The Prophet explained that these are the look in the eye, the desire within the heart and the verbal expressions which constitute the preliminaries for sexual intercourse. These are forgiven if they remain unacted upon (Bukhārī, book on social etiquette, see adultery of the senses: 5865).

The social development of Islamic teaching

It is a tradition of the Prophet that if adultery is discovered, the punishment is atonement for the sin committed. If it is divinely concealed, it is then left for God to punish the culprit or forgive him. This, together with the qurʾānic verses q 24:10-18 (Quṭb, Ẓilāl, iv, 2494—505), which forbid slander are adapted to the social conditions and values of Muslim societies in various areas. In the coastal area of Tunisia, for instance, the concept of concealment is interwoven with the values of the power and wealth of a woman’s agnates (father, sons, father’s brothers and their sons). The wealth of the rich enables them to seclude their women and control their behavior. Furthermore, their influence and material power intimidate other men and deter them from approaching their women and also enable them to conceal any offences committed by their women. Such privileges are denied poorer men, who, together with their erring women, suffer social degradation which they consider «destined by God» (maktūb). However, the punishment ordained by Islamic law is not inflicted (Abu-Zahra, Social structure).

In Egypt sexual offences committed by women also disgrace their agnates for it makes them appear unable to defend their honor or control their women. In the countryside adulterous women are drowned in the Nile. In Cairo people say, «If you disgrace yourselves, hide it» (idhā bulītum fa-statirū). They may also say, «God commanded concealment.» Both sayings are based on ḥadīth and the interpretation of q 24:19. The principle that repentance exonerates one from punishment is also followed by authorities in the local mosques (Abu-Zahra, Pure and powerful, 197-9). The Azhar Fatāwā Committee(Lajnat al-fatāwā) also follows this Islamic teaching. In the case of a girl who contracted gonorrhea through adultery, the Committee was asked whether it would be lawful for her to conceal the illness from her fiancé. A judgment was issued that it would be a crime to do so (al-Ahrām, Taqrīr, 53).

In 1995, the Muftī of Egypt declared that it is necessary to integrate the qurʾānic ḥudūd, including those for adultery, in the state penal code, on condition that they are carried out with meticulous observance of the traditional Islamic safeguards (al-Ahrām, Taqrīr, 78). This recommendation, however, has not been implemented.

See also law and the qurʾān; sin, major and minor.

Bibliography

Primary

• Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Ḥudūd, Kitāb al-Muḥāribīn
• Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām
• Quṭb, Ẓilāl
• Rāzī, Tafsīr, xii, 131-81

Secondary

• N. Abu-Zahra, Social structure of the village of Sidi Ameur in the Sahel of Tunisia, Ph.D. diss., Oxford 1968
• id., The pure and powerful. Studies in contemporary Muslim society, Reading 1997
• al-Ahrām, Markaz al-dirāsāt al-siyāsiyya wa-l-istrātījiyya, Taqrīr fal-ḥāla al-dīniyya fī Miṣr, vol. 3, Cairo 1996
• J. Schacht, Liʿān, in ei2, v, 730-3
• id., Zināʾ, in ei1, iv, 1227-8
• M. Shaltūt, al-Islām. ʿAqīda wa-sharīʿa, Cairo 199717