Lian (mutual imprecation)

What the lian serves

A husband sees his wife with a man, but no witness can confirm the suspicion: the Law opens the path of the lian, the mutual imprecation, avoiding both false testimony and the punishment owed to the slanderer. The Malikis define it as the oath of the accountable husband to having seen adultery, or to disavowing her pregnancy, followed by her oath to deny him, four times and a fifth on each side; the Shafi'is, as words fixed by the Law for one who cannot bring proof against the one staining his bed, or to disavow a child.

Its source

The Book sets it: "And those who accuse their wives, with no witnesses but themselves: the testimony of one of them is four testimonies by Allah that he is of the truthful, and the fifth, that the curse of Allah be upon him if he is of the liars; and she averts the punishment by testifying four times by Allah that he is of the liars, and the fifth, that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he is of the truthful" (an-Nur 6-9). The Sunna applies it: Hilal ibn Umayya accused his wife before the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), who kept repeating: "the proof, or the punishment upon your back"; he answered that the punishment might fall on an innocent, and the verse of the lian came down.

Conditions and procedure

The schools set conditions: a valid marriage, two responsible and discerning spouses, Muslims, both trustworthy and neither already struck by imprecation for slander; the lian takes place before the judge or his delegate, and becomes obligatory only upon the wife's request. The husband swears first, four attestations and a fifth invoking the curse; the wife answers term by term. If she refuses to swear, she implicitly admits.

Its effects

• the two spouses are separated forever: "the two partners of the lian never reunite", and the majority (Malikis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis, and Abu Yusuf and Zufar among the Hanafis) grades this separation an annulment: it counts no divorce, unlike a Hanafi view;
• the slander punishment does not apply to the husband: this is the verse's very meaning, which closes the punishment through the oath;
• the child remains attached to his mother, with no inheritance between him and his disavowing father, under the rule retained by the schools;
• the wife loses her financial rights from the marriage ended this way.

Practical note

The lian is a grave procedure, before the authority, with precise wordings: it belongs neither to families nor to rumors. Its aim: preserve lineage, stop the suspicion, and give each their fate by Allah's verdict.