Islamic Fiqh > Penalties (hudud) > Qadhf: false accusation of misconduct > Qadhf: definition, wording and punishment
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Updated on 24 September 2026 at 12:48 AM
This section is part of the full chapter: All sections of this chapter.
The Shafi'is define qadhf as the accusation of zina made by way of reproach, man and woman being alike in this (Mughni al-Muhtaj 5/454, Tuhfat al-Muhtaj 10/732). The Hanbalis define it as the accusation of zina or liwat, or testimony to that effect whose proof is incomplete (Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/132-133, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/198).
The wisdom behind establishing a hadd for qadhf and not for insulting with disbelief is that the one called a disbeliever can repel that accusation with the word of testimony, whereas the one accused of zina cannot repel zina from himself (Mughni al-Muhtaj 5/454).
Qadhf is forbidden by the Book, the Sunna and consensus; it is among the major sins and the seven destructive sins. From the Book: "Those who accuse chaste women without producing four witnesses: flog them with 80 lashes, and never accept their testimony again: it is they who are the transgressors" (Surah an-Nur 4), and: "Those who accuse chaste, unaware, believing women are cursed in this world and the hereafter, and they shall have a great torment" (Surah an-Nur 23). From the Sunna:
Avoid the seven destructive sins. They said: and what are they, Messenger of Allah? He said: associating partners with Allah, sorcery, killing the soul that Allah has forbidden except by right, consuming usury, consuming the orphan's property, fleeing on the day of battle, and accusing chaste, unaware, believing women.reported by al-Bukhari 2767 and Muslim 89
As for consensus, the community agrees on the prohibition of qadhf and on its belonging to the major sins. Imam al-'Imrani said: the community is unanimous on the prohibition of slandering a chaste man or woman (al-Bayan 12/395). Imam Ibn Qudama said: qadhf is the accusation of zina, it is forbidden by the consensus of the community (al-Mughni 9/76). Imam al-Zarkashi said: qadhf is forbidden by consensus, because of the harm it causes, which the law commands to remove (Sharh al-Zarkashi 3/113). Imam Ibn al-Humam said: linguistically qadhf is the casting of a thing, and in law it is the accusation of zina; it is among the major sins by consensus of the community (Sharh Fath al-Qadir 5/316). Imam Badr al-Din al-'Ayni said: qadhf is among the major sins by consensus of the imams (al-Binaya Sharh al-Hidaya 6/362).
Qadhf falls into three kinds. The first is obligatory: the case of a man who sees his wife commit zina during a period of purity in which he has not had relations with her. He must keep away from her until her waiting period ends; if she gives birth to a child six months after the zina and it is possible for him to disavow it, he must slander her and disavow the child, for that stands in place of certainty that the child comes from the adulterer. If he does not disavow it, the child is attached to him, inherits from him and his relatives, his relatives inherit from him, and that child would look upon his daughters and sisters, which is not permissible: disavowal is therefore obligatory to remove that. If she confessed the zina and he is inwardly convinced of her truthfulness, it is as if he had seen her.
The second kind is permitted: if he sees her commit zina, or her zina is established before him with no child whose lineage would attach to him, or there is a child but he does not know that it is from zina, or a trustworthy informant he believes informs him of her zina, or it spreads among the people that such a man keeps company with such a woman while he has seen him at her place, entering or leaving, or her depravity predominates in his opinion: in all these cases he may slander her. It is reported from Abdallah [Ibn Mas'ud] that a man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said: what do you say of a man who finds a man with his wife? If he speaks, you flog him; if he kills, you kill him; if he stays silent, he stays silent in anger. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) mentioned that he may speak or stay silent, without rebuking him. And the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not rebuke Hilal nor al-'Ajlani for their slander when they had seen. If he stays silent, it is permitted and it is better: he can leave her through divorce, which covers her and covers himself, with no child needing disavowal.
The third kind is forbidden: everything else, slandering one's wives or unrelated women. It is a major sin, by the word of Allah the Most High: "Those who accuse chaste, unaware, believing women are cursed in this world and the hereafter, and they shall have a great torment" (Surah an-Nur 23), and by the word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him):
Any woman who introduces into a lineage someone who does not belong to it has no share with Allah, and Allah will not admit her to Paradise; and any man who denies his child while he sees him, Allah will screen Himself from him and expose him on the heads of the first and the last.weak hadith, reported by Abu Dawud 2263, an-Nasa'i 3481 and Ibn Majah 2743
His words "while he sees him" mean: while he knows he is his. Just as Allah forbade the woman to introduce into a lineage someone who does not belong to it, He forbade the man to deny his child. It is not permitted to slander one's wife on the report of someone whose information is not trusted, for he is not safe from lying about her; nor for having seen a man leaving her place without her zina being well known, for he may have entered as a thief or a fugitive, or for a need or a corrupt purpose she refused him; nor because it circulates among the people without an indication proving their truthfulness, for her enemies may have spread it about her. Another view deems it permitted, public rumor being stronger than the report of a trustworthy person; nor because the child differs from his parents in color or resemblance, nor for his resemblance to other than them (al-Mughni 8/58-59, al-Mubdi' 9/88). The detail of all this was set out in the book of li'an.
The wording of qadhf falls into three: explicit, indirect and allusive. The explicit is the wording that bears no meaning other than qadhf, such as "O adulterer", "O adulteress", "O fornicator", the origin of "fornicator" ('ahir) being the man's going to the woman by night for debauchery, a sense later extended to the adulterer, whether he comes by night or day, or she. Or "your private part has committed adultery": wordings bearing no other meaning, so his reinterpretation is not accepted, like explicit divorce. What plays the role of the explicit also enters here: the negation of lineage. The jurists agree that qadhf by an explicit wording of zina carries the hadd under its conditions (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/42, adh-Dhakhira 12/90, al-Umm 5/131-132, Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/139).
The indirect is the wording that may carry qadhf or something else; the allusive is the speech by which one makes understood without naming. The jurists differed on indirect wording and allusion: do they carry the hadd? The Hanafis and the Shafi'is say no: indirect wording is open to interpretation, and the hadd is not established in the presence of doubt, all the more in the presence of ambiguity (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/42, al-Umm 5/131-132, Mukhtasar Ikhtilaf al-'Ulama' 3/311, Ahkam al-Qur'an 5/111).
Imam al-Shafi'i said: there is no li'an nor hadd except by explicit slander. If the husband says: "I did not find you a virgin from intercourse", whereas the hymen may be lost without intercourse and by intercourse, he is questioned: if he meant zina he is flogged or performs li'an; otherwise he swears, and there is no hadd nor li'an. He recalls the case of the woman who bore a black boy: the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) struck for him the example of the camels, without considering that speech a qadhf giving rise to li'an or hadd, because it could fail to target accusation, being only wonder or question. Allah said about the woman in her waiting period: "there is no blame on you for what you indicate of a marriage proposal", then forbidding the secret pledge: making the allusion to proposal lawful implies the prohibition of the explicit wording. This is the view of most of the people of Mecca and other lands; the people of Medina differ between the two positions (al-Umm 5/131-132).
Al-Mawardi said: the indirect wordings and allusions of qadhf are qadhf only by intention, in anger as in contentment; Abu Hanifa and most jurists say the same, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not treat that allusion as explicit. If one objects that it is in anger that it would become explicit, and no anger appeared from him, the answer is: his state testified to his anger, since he marveled that his wife, both being white, should bear a black boy resembling neither of them. The report of the man who says: "my wife does not refuse the hand of a toucher", who was told "divorce her", then "I love her", then "keep her", is an allusion to qadhf which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did not qualify as such. It cannot be read as the hand of a seeker of money: he would have been ordered to withhold his property from her, not to divorce. The Jews would say to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), distorting his name: "we disobeyed the blameworthy and approved his order", and he said: "see how Allah preserved me from them: they insult the Blameworthy, and I am Muhammad": he did not treat their allusion as explicit. By meaning, finally: what is indirect in contentment is indirect in anger, like the indirect wordings of divorce; and any speech that, attributed to oneself, is not a confession of zina, must not, attributed to another, be an accusation of zina (al-Hawi al-Kabir 11/131-132).
The Malikis and the Hanbalis hold that indirect qadhf and the allusion from which it is understood that he meant it carry the hadd, at the same rank as the explicit, this being known from the state of affairs, the turns of speech and the circumstances: it is speech from which qadhf is understood, so it is qadhf, the origin being the explicit. If it is not understood, then there is, without disagreement, no hadd, as when one answers "O adulterer" with "may Allah give you a good morning" or "you are generous and noble". Language itself attests that allusion designates what is understood of it in the sense of the explicit: Allah reports that the people of Shu'ayb said to him "you are surely the clement, the rightly guided" (Surah Hud 87) meaning the opposite. And when two men trade insults, one seeking to demean the other, and one says "O adulterer" or "the most distant of us is the son of an adulteress", and the other answers "you are not an adulterer" or "his mother is chaste", with the signs making his aim known, that is understood from the state of affairs, as one distinguishes "I testify there is no deity but Allah" said as proof, said in reverence, said in wonder at an event, said in the call to prayer, or reported. They moreover conceded that if the speaker says: "I meant qadhf by it", it is qadhf: that would not be understood without intention. This view is reported from Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn 'Affan, Urwa and al-Zuhri. Ibn al-Qayyim says: it is established from Umar by several routes that he applied the hadd for allusion: Ma'mar reports it from al-Zuhri, from Salim, from his father: Umar applied the hadd for allusion to lewdness; Ibn Jurayj and others report it from Ibn Abi Mulayka, from Safwan and Ayyub; Abu Umar mentions that Uthman applied the hadd for allusion, reported by Ibn Abi Shayba; Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz held the same, as did the people of Medina and al-Awza'i. It is the pure analogy: divorce, manumission, endowment and zihar are valid by the explicit as by the indirect; the word was instituted only for its meaning, and when the meaning appears in the highest degree, changing the wording brings little (I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in 3/129).
Ibn Rushd says: as for the qadhf that carries the hadd, the jurists agree on two forms: accusing the slandered person of zina, and denying him his lineage when his mother is free and Muslim. They differ if she is a disbeliever or a slave: Malik says: whether she is free, a Muslim slave or a disbeliever, the hadd applies; Ibrahim al-Nakha'i says: no hadd when the slandered person's mother is a slave or a scriptuary, and that is the analogy of the positions of al-Shafi'i and Abu Hanifa. They agree that when the qadhf bears on these two meanings by an explicit wording, the hadd applies (Bidayat al-Mujtahid 2/330).
Among the Hanafis, it is explicit to say to a man: "O adulterer", "you have committed adultery" or "you are an adulterer": he is flogged, for he has uttered explicit qadhf of zina. If he says the word with the hamza [a rare form of the same root] or "you have withdrawn into the mountain" [another sense of the root], he is flogged, and his reinterpretation as "I meant the ascent in the mountain" is not accepted, for the common people do not distinguish the hamzated form from the softened one.
"Son of an adulterer" said to a man: he slanders his father, as if he had said "your father is an adulterer". "Son of an adulterer" in the feminine: he slanders his mother, as if he had said "your mother is an adulteress". "Son of the adulterer and the adulteress": he slanders his father and his mother, as if he had said "your two parents are adulterers". "Son of adultery, product of adultery": it is qadhf, for its meaning in people's usage is: you are created from the water of adultery. "Son of two adulteresses": it is qadhf, and what is considered is the chastity of the mother who bore him, not that of the grandmother: if his mother is Muslim, the hadd applies even if the grandmother is a disbeliever; if his mother is a disbeliever, no hadd even if the grandmother is Muslim, for the mother is truly his bearer and the grandmother is called mother only figuratively. Likewise "son of a hundred adulteresses" or "son of a thousand adulteresses": he slanders his mother.
"Son of the prostitute" is not qadhf: this name applies to the adulteress as to the woman prepared and disposed to zina without having committed it, and the ambiguity prevents the qualification. Likewise "son of the da'iyya", the woman ascribed to a tribe without lineage from them: this does not indicate zina, her lineage being possible from others.
Reciprocal exchanges: if a man says to another "O adulterer" and the other answers "no, you are the adulterer" or "no, you", both are flogged, each having slandered the other explicitly. If he says to a woman "O adulteress" and she answers "I committed adultery with you": no hadd on the man, for she confirmed him in his slander, which then leaves what carries the hadd; the woman is flogged, for she accused him of zina explicitly without confirmation from him. If she answers "I committed adultery along with you": no hadd on either; on him, because of her confirmation; on her, because her answer may mean "I committed adultery with you" or "I committed adultery in your presence", and ambiguity prevents qadhf.
To his wife "O adulteress", and she answers "no, you": the wife is flogged with the hadd of qadhf and there is no li'an for the man: each spouse slandered the other, the wife's qadhf carries the hadd of qadhf, and the husband's qadhf against his wife carries li'an. If she answers "I committed adultery with you": neither hadd nor li'an, for she may mean before marriage, or "I allowed no one but you; if that is zina, then it is", which is customary; if she meant the first, there is no li'an and the hadd applies, for she confessed zina; the second, li'an applies, for the husband accused her of zina without her confirming him and without hadd upon her: ambiguity prevents the establishment of both.
"You are an adulteress" said to a woman who answers "you are more adulterous than I": the man is flogged, not the woman; he, for explicit slander without confirmation; she, because her answer may intend preeminence in zina as it may intend "you are more able and more versed in it than I", and ambiguity prevents qadhf. Likewise "you are the most adulterous of people", "of adulterers", "more adulterous than so-and-so": no hadd. "You committed adultery and so-and-so with you": he slanders both, the conjunction "and" carrying joint attribution. If two men trade insults and one says "my father is not an adulterer nor my mother an adulteress", it is not qadhf: the apparent meaning is negation of zina from his parents, even if it is a way of aiming at the other's parents, and qadhf by indirect wording and allusion does not carry the hadd. "You commit adultery": no hadd, this wording serving for the future as for the present. "You commit adultery and I am the one flogged": no hadd, this speech being, in usage, a way of striking an example in wonder, like the word of Allah: "no soul bears the burden of another" (Surah al-Isra 15).
"I have never seen an adulteress better than you" said to a woman, or "an adulterer better than you" said to a man: it is not qadhf, for he did not make this person the best of adulterers, but better than adulterers, which does not imply zina from her. "Your husband committed adultery with you before marrying you": he is a slanderer, for he attributed to her husband a zina prior to the marriage in connected speech. "So-and-so had illicit intercourse with you", "cohabited with you unlawfully", "fornicated with you"; or to a man: "you had illicit intercourse with such a woman", "you cohabited with her unlawfully": no hadd, for he accused only illicit intercourse, which may be intercourse under a mistaken belief (shubha) and not zina.
"Go to so-and-so and say to him: O adulterer, or son of an adulterer": the sender is not a slanderer, he ordered qadhf without committing it; as for the messenger, if he initiates the speech outside his errand, he is a slanderer and incurs the hadd; if he conveys it as a message, saying: "so-and-so sends me to tell you: O adulterer", no hadd on him, for he reports another's qadhf without slandering. "I have been informed that you are an adulterer", "I have been asked to testify to that": no qadhf, for he reports another's information and another's request for testimony.
"O man of the people of Lot": no qadhf by consensus, for it amounts to ascription to the people of Lot alone, which does not imply practicing their act, liwat. If he spells it out and says "you do the act of the people of Lot", naming it: no qadhf either according to Abu Hanifa, while according to his two companions he is a slanderer, the first holding that this act is not zina, the two others that it has the meaning of zina.
"O adulterer", and a third party present answers "you have spoken the truth": the slanderer is flogged, not the one who confirms, for his confirmation is indirect qadhf; if he says "you have spoken the truth, it is exactly as you say", he is flogged, for it is the equivalent of an explicit wording.
"Your brother is an adulterer", and the man answers "no, you": the answerer is flogged, for "no, you" is a reinforced affirmation: he slandered the first with confirmation; as for the first, a distinction is made: if the man has other brothers, no hadd upon him; if he has only that one brother, that brother may demand the hadd from him, the one addressed may not.
"You are not of your father": he slanders his mother, in anger as in contentment, for this speech serves only to negate lineage on the father's side, so it is qadhf against the mother. "This is not your father", or to his own father: "you are not the son of so-and-so", or to a stranger: "you are the son of so-and-so": if in anger, it is qadhf; outside anger, it is not, for this speech may negate lineage as it may target dissimilarity of character ("your character does not resemble your father's", "your character resembles so-and-so's"), and doubt prevents qadhf. Likewise "son of Muzayqiya" or "son of the water of the sky": qadhf only in anger, for it may intend the negation of lineage as praise by comparison with two lords of the Arabs: 'Amir ibn Haritha was called "the water of the sky" for his purity and generosity, and 'Amr ibn 'Amir "al-Muzayqiya" because he tore his garments: a man of wealth and pride, he wore a new garment each day which he removed in the evening and tore, so that none might wear it and become his equal. The state of affairs decides: in anger, negation of lineage is presumed and it is qadhf; in contentment, praise is presumed and it is not qadhf.
"You are the son of so-and-so" said to his paternal uncle, maternal uncle or his mother's husband: no qadhf, for the uncle is called father. "You are not the son of so-and-so" said to his grandfather: no slanderer, for he speaks truly in the literal sense, the grandfather being called father only figuratively. "O Nabatean" said to an Arab: no qadhf; "you are not of the Banu so-and-so", to the tribe he is from: no slanderer according to the generality of scholars. "Son of the tailor", "son of the reddish one", "of the black one" when his father is not such: he is a liar, not a slanderer; likewise "son of the amputated one" or "son of the one-eyed" when his father is not such: a liar, as saying to a sighted man "O blind one".
Qadhf in Arabic or any other language alike carries the hadd, for the meaning of qadhf is the attribution of zina, which is realized in every tongue. "Your private part has committed adultery": he is flogged, for zina of the private part is conceivable, as if he said "you committed adultery with your private part".
To a woman: "you committed adultery with a horse, a donkey, a camel or a bull": no hadd, for he may intend her making herself available to these beasts, which is conceivable in the literal sense, as he may intend giving these beasts as the price or wage of zina; the first sense is not qadhf, for zina from a beast is not conceivable; the second is, as "you committed adultery for dirhams, dinars or goods": ambiguity prevents the hadd. "You committed adultery under coercion, being deranged, insane or asleep": no qadhf, for he accused her in a state in which zina from her is not conceivable: his speech is a lie, not qadhf. To a convert to Islam: "you committed adultery while a disbeliever": it is qadhf and he incurs the hadd.
"You are not of your mother": no hadd, for it is pure lie: negation of lineage from the mother is inconceivable, his mother truly bore him. Likewise "you are not of your two parents": a lie, lineage not disappearing from the mother who bore him, unlike "you are not of your father", which does not negate the mother's childbearing but negates lineage from the father, and negating lineage from the father is qadhf against the mother. "You are not of your father nor of your mother" in connected speech: no qadhf, it being the same as "you are not of your two parents" (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/42-45, al-Jawhara an-Nayyira 5/360-362, al-Lubab 2/314-315, al-Ikhtiyar 4/111).
Among the Malikis: the allusion making understood one of the three things, zina, liwat, or negation of lineage from the father or grandfather, counts as explicit. "As for me, I am not an adulterer" counts as "O adulterer"; "as for me, I am not a sodomite" counts as "O sodomite"; "as for me, my father is known" counts as "your father is not known": the hadd falls on the speaker, no difference between prose and verse. Also carrying the hadd: "I have been informed that you are an adulterer", "your private part, your hand or your eye has committed adultery", and "you committed adultery under coercion" said to an unrelated woman who belies him. To his wife: "you committed adultery under coercion": he performs li'an, otherwise he is flogged, unless he establishes proof of the coercion. Also flogged is one who says to another "my private part is chaste", because of the mention of the private part, the allusion bearing on zina; without mention of the private part, no hadd. Likewise to a person of Arab origin: "you are not free", for it negates his lineage; "O Rumi", "O Persian" and the like, for it cuts his lineage; the reverse, saying to a Persian or a Rumi "O Arab", carries no hadd, for it does not cut his lineage but describes him with the qualities of the Arabs, generosity, courage and the rest, the Arabs preserving their lineage unlike others. Also flogged is one who ascribes a person to his uncle, for it cuts his lineage, unlike ascription to the grandfather, paternal or maternal, the grandfather being called father; in mutual insult or not, this is the view of Ibn al-Qasim.
The legally responsible person who says of himself "I am a bastard", of corrupt lineage, is flogged, for he slanders his mother; likewise "I am a child of adultery", for he cast zina at his mother; likewise if he ascribes himself to a lineage, tribe or clan other than his own, for he slandered his mother, as one who ascribes another to that, by shared cause. Flogged is one who says to a woman "O prostitute", the prostitute being the adulteress, no difference between his wife and the unrelated woman; likewise "O wicked woman" and "O courtesan". Flogged is one who says to a man "qarnan", the man whose wife brings another close to her against him: the hadd belongs to his wife if she demands it. Likewise "son of she who lodges the riders": he slanders his mother, for in the pre-Islamic era the woman who wanted lewdness lodged the riders; likewise "son of she of the banner": he alludes to his mother, the pre-Islamic woman who lodged the riders placing at her door a banner, that is, a sign, for lodging. Likewise one who says to a woman "you did it in the folds of her belly", for it is stronger than allusion.
Adh-Dhakhira gives the rule of the whole chapter: customary notoriety and circumstantial indications; when both are absent, the speaker swears; when one of them exists, he is flogged; if custom changes and ceases, the hadd ceases; this varies with eras and lands. Thereby it appears that "son of she of the banner" and "son of she who lodges the riders" [in current usage] carry no hadd, and that what carries no hadd today would carry it if it became notorious.
"O sodomite": the speaker is flogged, for literally it is the one with an ailment of the rectum, and figuratively the one who feminizes his speech in the manner of women; hence if the one addressed does feminize his speech, no hadd upon his slanderer, but he is disciplined. Likewise "son of the Christian", "of the blue-eyed", "of the one-eyed" and the like when there is no such one among his ancestors: he is flogged, for he slandered his mother, the one addressed being Arab or not; if there is such a one among his ancestors, no hadd. "Son of the weaver" and other craft names: if the one addressed is Arab, a distinction is drawn according to whether his ancestors were such or not; if he is not Arab, no hadd at all. "O effeminate one" (mukhannath, the adopting of feminine manners in word and deed): he is flogged unless he swears he did not mean qadhf; if he swears, he is not. As for "O sinner", "O depraved one", "O wine drinker", "son of the wicked woman", "son of the depraved woman", "O usury eater", "O donkey", "son of a donkey", "O pig" and the like: the speaker is disciplined; likewise "I am chaste" or "you are not chaste": discipline, for without attaching chastity to the private part, it may intend chasteness in food and elsewhere, hence no hadd unless an indication turns it to the private part.
To an unrelated woman: "you committed adultery", and she answers "with you", thereby confirming him: she incurs two hadds, that of qadhf and that of zina, for her confirmation, unless she retracts her confession of zina, in which case only the hadd of qadhf remains, or unless she only meant to answer him, in which case the hadd of qadhf falls upon him. "O adulterer", and the other answers "you are more adulterous than I": no hadd on the first, who slandered a person unchaste by her own saying, and the second incurs the hadd of zina and of qadhf (at-Taj wa-l-Iklil 5/339-342, Sharh Mukhtasar Khalil 8/88-90, ash-Sharh al-Kabir with the hachiya of ad-Dasuqi 6/325-331, Tahbir al-Mukhtasar 5/351-356).
Among the Shafi'is: the explicit wordings of qadhf are those of zina, such as saying to a man or a woman: "you committed adultery", "O adulterer", "O adulteress". Attributing to someone the penetration of the glans into the vagina while qualifying it as forbidden, or into the rectum, is explicit by customary notoriety: for the vagina, the qualification of forbidden is necessary, for intercourse may be lawful or unlawful; for the rectum it is only unlawful, whether the one described is a man or a woman. As for "O man of the people of Lot", one view makes it indirect, because of the possible intention of ascription to the religion of the people of Lot (peace be upon him), and one view makes it explicit, that possibility being remote.
The indirect and the allusive: to a man "O depraved one, O sinner, O vile one"; to a woman "O depraved woman, O wicked woman, O vile woman", "you love seclusion", "you do not refuse the hand of a toucher"; to one's wife "I did not find you a virgin" or "I found a man with you": all this is indirect qadhf; if he denies intending slander, he is believed upon his oath. "Son of the lawful" and "as for me, I am not an adulterer" and the like are allusions, not qadhf, even if intended. "I committed adultery with you" is a confession of zina and a qadhf.
To his wife "O adulteress", and she answers "I committed adultery with you" or "you are more adulterous than I": he is a slanderer and is flogged for the explicit wording; her answer is indirect in its slander, and she is believed upon her oath that she did not intend slander: her first answer may negate zina ("I did not do it, just as you did not"), as one answers "have you lunched?" with "I lunched with you"; her second may intend "none but you had me; if I am an adulteress, you are more than I: I allowed, and you did". If she says, in answer or spontaneously, "I am an adulteress and you are more adulterous than I": she confesses zina by the first term and slanders her husband explicitly by the other: the hadd of qadhf and of zina upon her, beginning with the hadd of qadhf, a human right; if she retracts, the hadd of zina falls, not that of qadhf. If she says to her husband spontaneously "you are more adulterous than so-and-so", it is indirect, unless that man's zina is established and she knows it: it is then explicit and she is a slanderer; if she is ignorant of it, it is indirect, she is believed upon her oath, then disciplined and not flogged.
Saying to another "your private part, your member, your vagina or your rectum has committed adultery": it is qadhf, the organ named being the instrument of that act or its place. "Your hand and your eye have committed adultery", and to one's own child "you are not of me" or "you are not my child": indirect; to another's child "you are not the son of so-and-so": explicit, except for the one disavowed by li'an (an-Najm al-Wahhaj 8/86-89, Mughni al-Muhtaj 5/56-61).
Among the Hanbalis, the wordings of qadhf divide into explicit and indirect, like divorce. The explicit: what bears no other meaning, such as an obscene insult equivalent to "son of an adulteress" if he does not reinterpret it; if he reinterprets it otherwise, it is not qadhf. Likewise "O adulterer" and "O fornicator", the origin of fornicator being, as cited above, the man's going to the woman by night for debauchery, later extended to the adulterer; and "O man of the people of Lot", in usage the one who assails males, for it is the act of the people of Lot. These wordings are explicit in qadhf, bearing no other meaning, like explicit divorce. "You are not the child of so-and-so": qadhf against his mother, that is, the one addressed. Likewise his being disavowed from his tribe, by the hadith of Ash'ath ibn Qays:
Let no man be brought to me who says that Kinana is not of Quraysh, but that I flog him.suspended report (mawquf), reported by Ibn Majah 2612 and Ahmad 5/211
The indirect: "your hands have committed adultery", "your feet", "your hand", "your body", for zina of these limbs does not carry the hadd, by the word of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him):
The eyes commit adultery and their adultery is the look; the hands commit adultery and their adultery is the grasp; the feet commit adultery and their adultery is the walking, and the private part confirms that or belies it.reported by al-Bukhari 6243 and Muslim 2657
Likewise "O effeminate one", "O prostitute", "O depraved woman", "O vile woman"; or to someone's wife: "you have dishonored your husband, you have covered his head, you have made him wear horns, you have ascribed children of another to him, you have corrupted his bed"; or to his adversary: "O lawful one, son of the lawful, the people do not know you for zina", "I am not an adulterer nor my mother" and the like: none of this is explicit in qadhf. If he intends real zina by these wordings, he is flogged for qadhf, for indirect wording with intention or indication counts as explicit for the ruling; otherwise he is disciplined, his act being a disobedience without hadd or expiation: the effeminate one may intend the man of feminine manners, the prostitute the woman who exposes herself to zina without committing it, the depraved woman the liar (al-Mughni 9/79-81, Kashshaf al-Qina' 6/139-143, Sharh Muntaha al-Iradat 6/206-210, Manar as-Sabil 3/318-319).
When qadhf is established under its conditions, by the slanderer's confession or the testimony of two witnesses, the slanderer who is free, responsible, adult and Muslim is flogged with 80 lashes, no more; the slave with 40, by the Book and consensus. The Book:
Those who accuse chaste women without producing four witnesses: flog them with eighty lashes and never accept their testimony again; it is they who are the transgressors.surah an-Nur 4
Ibn Hazm records the agreement: the free, responsible, adult Muslim, not coerced, who slanders by explicit wording of zina a free, responsible, adult, Muslim, chaste man never flogged for zina, or a free, adult, responsible, Muslim, chaste woman not concerned by li'an and never flogged for zina, outside the abode of war, upon the demand of the one concerned: 80 lashes are due from him. And the agreement that the slanderer who is a slave incurs 40 lashes, with disagreement beyond that; and the agreement that none of this exceeds 80 lashes (Maratib al-Ijma', p. 134).
Ibn Rushd says: the jurists agree that the penalty is 80 lashes for the free slanderer, by the word of the Most High: "80 lashes" (Surah an-Nur 4). They differed on the slave who slanders a free man: the majority of the jurists of the great centers: his penalty is half the free person's, that is 40 lashes, reported from the four caliphs and from Ibn Abbas; a group: his penalty is the free person's, the view of Ibn Mas'ud among the Companions, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, a group of jurists, Abu Thawr, al-Awza'i, Dawud and his Zahiri companions. The argument of the majority: the analogy of his penalty in qadhf upon his penalty in zina; the Zahiris rely on the generality of the verse, and since they also agree that the scriptuary's penalty is 80, the slave is more entitled to it (Bidayat al-Mujtahid 2/330-331).
Ibn Qudama says: the amount of the penalty is 80 when the slanderer is free, by the verse and consensus, man or woman, on condition that he be adult, responsible and not coerced, conditions required for every hadd (al-Mughni 9/77). Shams al-Din Ibn Qudama says: the scholars are unanimous on the obligation of the hadd upon one who slanders a chaste person, and on its amount of 80 for the free person, by the verse; for the slanderer who is a slave, the penalty is 40 lashes, and they are unanimous on the obligation of the hadd upon the slave who slanders a chaste person, for he falls under the generality of the verse, his penalty being 40 according to the majority of scholars. Abdallah ibn 'Amir ibn Rabi'a said: "I knew Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and the caliphs after them: I never saw them flog the male slave, when he slandered, except with 40." Khallas reports that Ali said, concerning a slave who slandered a free man: "half the hadd is upon him." Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn 'Amr ibn Hazm flogged a slave who had slandered a free man with 80, followed therein by Qabisa and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, applying the generality of the verse. The correct view is the first, by the consensus transmitted from the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), and because it is a penalty that divides: the slave owes half of the free person's as in zina, and this particularizes the generality of the verse. His decision was indeed criticized: Abdallah ibn 'Amir ibn Rabi'a said: "I saw no one flog a slave with 80 before him"; and Sa'id reports from Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi al-Zinad, from his father: "I was present when Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz flogged a slave with 80 in a slander case: those present among the people and others among the jurists disapproved"; Abdallah ibn 'Amir ibn Rabi'a said: "by Allah, I saw Umar ibn al-Khattab, and no one flogged a slave beyond 40 in a slander." Al-Kharqi: his whip is lighter than the one with which the free man is flogged: the penalty being lightened in number, it is lightened in whip; the apparent meaning of his shaykh's words is that the whip is that of the free man, equality of whip realizing the halving (ash-Sharh al-Kabir 10/211-212).
As for the slandered person, Ibn Rushd says: the jurists agree that five qualities must be gathered in him: puberty, freedom, chastity, Islam, and the physical capacity for zina; if one of these qualities is missing, the hadd does not apply. The majority on the whole requires the freedom of the slandered person, though a disagreement may slip in there; Malik takes into account, for the woman's age, her capacity for intercourse (Bidayat al-Mujtahid 2/330). For Islam: it is a condition, for the hadd of qadhf is established only to repel the disgrace of zina from the slandered person, and the disgrace of disbelief that is in the disbeliever is greater.
The jurists agree that the slandered person must be chaste, abstaining from zina: if he slanders one whose zina is known by proof or confession, the hadd does not apply, by the word of Allah the Most High: "Those who accuse chaste women without producing four witnesses: flog them with 80 lashes..." (Surah an-Nur 4) and "Those who accuse chaste, unaware, believing women..." (Surah an-Nur 23): the chaste are the free women, and the unaware are those preserved from zina; since the hadd falls on the one who does not bring four witnesses to the zina of the slandered person, it follows that, if he brings four witnesses established on his zina, no hadd strikes him. And because the hadd is obligatory only to repel disgrace: whoever has no chastity suffers no disgrace from the accusation of zina.
The meaning of chastity according to al-Kasani: that the slandered person never had, in his lifetime, unlawful intercourse outside ownership or marriage at all, nor in a marriage invalid by consensus of the early generations; if he did any of that, his chastity falls, whether the intercourse carries the hadd or not. If he had unlawful intercourse but within ownership or a real marriage, or an invalid marriage whose invalidity is a matter of legal reasoning, his chastity does not fall. Details in several cases: intercourse with a woman under a mistaken belief, such as another than his wife presented to him as the bride: his chastity falls, for it is unlawful intercourse outside ownership and marriage, though no hadd applies because of the apparent permitting evidence. Intercourse with his wife in menstruation, in lochia, fasting, in ihram, or from whom he pronounced zihar, or with a married slavegirl: his chastity does not fall, for ownership or marriage truly exists and it is permitted in itself, the impediment coming from elsewhere. Marrying a woman in another's waiting period, another man's wife, a Zoroastrian or his milk-sister: his chastity falls according to Abu Hanifa, whether he knew or not; according to his two companions, if he did not know, it does not fall. Kissing a woman with desire, or looking at her private part with desire, then marrying her daughter or her mother and consummating: his chastity does not fall according to Abu Hanifa, it falls according to the two companions. Marrying a woman without witnesses and consummating: his chastity falls, for the invalidity of this marriage is by consensus among the early generations, Malik's divergence not being counted. No hadd upon one who slanders a woman flogged for zina, or having a child whose father is unknown, or who performed li'an concerning a child: the indications of zina are apparent in her, she is therefore not chaste (Bada'i' as-Sana'i' 7/41-42).
Al-'Imrani says: if a man slanders another who had unlawful intercourse, or a woman who had unlawful intercourse, unlawful intercourse is of four kinds. First: purely unlawful, zina; likewise intercourse with his mother or sister under a marriage contract while knowing its prohibition, with the pawned slavegirl, with his father's slavegirl, or with the slavegirl he gave as dowry to his wife, while knowing its prohibition: the hadd falls on the doer and his standing as a chaste person falls, so no hadd upon his slanderer. Second: unlawful by circumstance, such as intercourse with his wife in menstruation, in lochia, fasting or in ihram: no hadd upon the doer for it, his standing does not fall, and the hadd applies to his slanderer. Third: unlawful in every case but within ownership, such as intercourse with his mother or sister whom he owns: if it is said the hadd falls for that intercourse, his standing falls and his slanderer incurs nothing; if it is said it does not, his standing remains and the hadd applies to his slanderer. Fourth: unlawful outside ownership but disagreed upon, such as marriage without guardian or witnesses, exchange marriage, temporary marriage, or the shared slavegirl: no hadd upon the doer for that intercourse, and two views on the fall of his standing: it falls, for it is unlawful intercourse outside ownership, like zina; or it does not, for it is intercourse carrying no hadd upon the doer, like intercourse with the menstruating wife.
The three imams require effective chastity; as for Imam Ahmad, he is content with apparent chastity: the one whose zina is not established by proof or confession, and who was not flogged for zina, is chaste. And when qadhf consists in negating lineage, the hadd applies by agreement.