4 Preface وَالَّذينَ يَرمونَ المُحصَناتِ ثُمَّ لَم يَأتوا بِأَربَعَةِ شُهَداءَ فَاجلِدوهُم ثَمانينَ جَلدَةً وَلا تَقبَلوا لَهُم شَهادَةً أَبَدًا ۚ وَأُولٰئِكَ هُمُ الفاسِقونَYusuf AliAnd those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations),- flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their evidence1 ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors;-The most serious notice is taken of people who put forward slanders or scandalous suggestions about women without adequate evidence. If anything is said against a woman’s chastity, it should be supported by evidence twice as strong as would ordinarily be required for business transactions, or even in murder cases. That is, four witnesses would be required instead of two. Failing such preponderating evidence, the slanderer should himself be treated as a wicked transgressor and punished with eighty stripes. Not only would he be subjected to this disgraceful form of punishment, but he would be deprived of the citizen’s right of giving evidence in all matters all his life, unless he repents and reforms, in which case he can be readmitted to be a competent witness. (The verse lays down the punishment for slandering “chaste women”, which by consensus of opinion also covers slandering chaste men. Chaste women have been specially mentioned, according to Commentators, because slandering them is more abhorrent. (Eds.) (Cf. n. 662).