Surah Nur Ayat 13 in Arabic Text
English Translation
Here you can read various translations of verse 13
Why did they [who slandered] not produce for it four witnesses? And when they do not produce the witnesses, then it is they, in the sight of Allah, who are the liars.
Why did they not bring four witnesses to prove it? When they have not brought the witnesses, such men, in the sight of Allah, (stand forth) themselves as liars!
Why did the slanderers not bring four witnesses (to prove their charge)? Now that they have not brought witnesses, they themselves are liars in the sight of Allah.
Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they (the slanderers) have not produced witnesses! Then with Allah they are the liars.
Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah.
If they had come up with four witnesses against it- yet as they did not come up with the witnesses, then those, in the Reckoning of Allah, are they (who are) the liars.
And why did the accusers not bring four witnesses to it? If they cannot produce such witnesses, they are the liars in God’s eyes.
وه اس پر چار گواه کیوں نہ ﻻئے؟ اور جب گواه نہیں ﻻئے تو یہ بہتان باز لوگ یقیناً اللہ کے نزدیک محض جھوٹے ہیں
Quran 24 Verse 13 Explanation
For those looking for commentary to help with the understanding of Surah Nur ayat 13, we’ve provided two Tafseer works below. The first is the tafseer of Abul Ala Maududi, the second is of Ibn Kathir.
Ala-Maududi
(24:13) Why did they not bring four witnesses in support of their accusation? Now that they have brought no witnesses, it is indeed they who are liars in the sight of Allah.[14]
14. “With Allah”: In the sight of Allah or in the law of Allah, or according to the law of Allah. Obviously, in Allah’s knowledge, the accusation was by itself false and its falsehood was in no way dependent on the production of witnesses by the accusers.
Here nobody should have the misunderstanding that failure to bring witnesses is being regarded as the basis and argument to prove that the accusation was false, and that the Muslims are also being told to regard it as a manifest calumny only because the accusers did not bring four witnesses. This misunderstanding can arise if one does not keep in view the background of the actual incident. As a matter of fact, none of the accusers had actually witnessed the thing which they were uttering with their tongues. The only basis of their accusation was that Aishah had been left behind from the caravan and afterwards Safwan had brought her to the camp on his camel. From this nobody with a little common sense could conclude that Aishah’s being left behind was intentional. These are not the ways of those who do these things. It cannot happen that the wife of the army commander quietly stays back with a man, and then the same man makes her ride on his camel and makes haste to catch up with the army at the next halting place in the open daylight at noon. The situation itself warranted that they were innocent. There could, however, be some justification in the charge if the accusers had seen something with their own eyes, otherwise the circumstances on which the accusers had based their accusation did not contain any ground for doubt and suspicion.
Ibn-Kathir
The tafsir of Surah An-Nur verse 13 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Nur ayat 12 which provides the complete commentary from verse 12 through 13.
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