The Quran

إِنَّ الَّذينَ جاءوا بِالإِفكِ عُصبَةٌ مِنكُم ۚ لا تَحسَبوهُ شَرًّا لَكُم ۖ بَل هُوَ خَيرٌ لَكُم ۚ لِكُلِّ امرِئٍ مِنهُم مَا اكتَسَبَ مِنَ الإِثمِ ۚ وَالَّذي تَوَلّىٰ كِبرَهُ مِنهُم لَهُ عَذابٌ عَظيمٌ

Muhammad Asad

Verily, numerous among you are those who would falsely accuse others of unchastity:¹ [but, O you who are thus wronged,] deem it not a bad thing for you: nay, it is good for you!² [As for the slanderers,] unto every one of them [will be accounted] all that he has earned by [thus] sinning; and awesome suffering awaits any of them who takes it upon himself to enhance this [sin]!³

Lit., "those who brought forth the lie (al-ifk, here denoting a false accusation of unchastity) are a numerous group ('usbah) among you". The term 'usbah signifies any group of people, of indeterminate number, banded together for a particular purpose (Taj al-'Arus). - According to all the commentators, the passage comprising verses 11-20 relates to an incident which occurred on the Prophet's return from the campaign against the tribe of Mustaliq in the year 5 H. The Prophet's wife 'A'ishah, who had accompanied him on that expedition, was inadvertently left behind when the Muslims struck camp before dawn. After having spent several hours alone, she was found by one of the Prophet's companions, who led her to the next halting-place of the army. This incident gave rise to malicious insinuations of misconduct on the part of 'A'ishah; but these rumours were short-lived, and her innocence was established beyond all doubt. - As is the case with all Qur'anic allusions to historical events, this one, too, is primarily meant to bring out an ethical proposition valid for all times and all social circumstances: and this is the reason why the grammatical construction of the above passage is such that the past-tense verbs occurring in verses 11-16 can be - and, I believe, should be - understood as denoting the present tense.
I.e., in the sight of God: for, the unhappiness caused by unjust persecution confers - as does every undeserved and patiently borne suffering - a spiritual merit on the person thus afflicted. Cf. the saying of the Prophet, quoted by Bukhari and Muslim: "Whenever a believer is stricken with any hardship, or pain, or anxiety, or sorrow, or harm, or distress - even if it be a thorn that has hurt him - God redeems thereby some of his failings."
I.e,, by stressing, in a legally and morally inadmissible manner, certain "circumstantial" details or aspects of the case in order to make the slanderous, unfounded allegation more believable,