The Slander (al-Ifk)
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ جَآءُو بِٱلْإِفْكِ عُصْبَةٌ مِّنكُمْ ۚ لَا تَحْسَبُوهُ شَرًّا لَّكُم ۖ بَلْ هُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ ۚ لِكُلِّ ٱمْرِئٍ مِّنْهُم مَّا ٱكْتَسَبَ مِنَ ٱلْإِثْمِ ۚ وَٱلَّذِى تَوَلَّىٰ كِبْرَهُۥ مِنْهُمْ لَهُۥ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ
(24:11) Indeed those who initiated the calumny are a group from among yourselves. Do not suppose it is bad thing for you. No, it is for your good. Each man among them bears [the onus for] his share in the sin, and as for him who assumed its major burden from among them, there is a great punishment for him.
The question
The verses on “the slander” (al-ifk) concern a member of the Prophet's household accused of indecency: was it ʿĀʾishah, as the Sunnī accounts say, or Māriyah the Copt, as some Shīʿī narrations say — and what do the verses themselves establish?
Views answered: the Sunnī accounts from ʿĀʾishah and others, the Shīʿī narrations naming Māriyah, exegetes on whom the verses address
Al-Mizan's argument
Because the two accounts differ, al-Mizan explains the verses on their own terms: a member of the Prophet's household was accused of indecency by a band of people connected to one another; the story spread from tongue to tongue; and God declared it a lie, rebuked the believers for not thinking well of their own, and made the episode a good for them. In the narrations he examines the long account from ʿĀʾishah and its parallels, and raises three problems: they show the Prophet himself in doubt about her for a month, whereas a prophet's household is kept clear of such indecency; the penalty for slander was not applied until much later; and what they say of the named slanderers and the doubled penalty for Ibn Ubayy does not hold together — the only way out being that the verses on slander were revealed before the penalty for accusation. He then examines the Shīʿī narrations that the accusation was against Māriyah and her servant Jarīḥ, and finds that they too do not match the verses and face the same problem of the delayed penalty.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- Two accounts: ʿĀʾishah or Māriyah
- Discussing the verses apart from both accounts
- What the verses establish
- “A band from among you”
- Whom the verses address
- “Do not regard it an evil to you”
- Narrations: ʿĀʾishah's account
- Its parallels and the slanderers they name
- First problem: the Prophet's doubt
- Why a prophet's household is kept clear
- Second problem: the delayed penalty
- The only way out
- Third problem: the named slanderers and the doubled penalty
- The Shīʿī narrations: Māriyah and Jarīḥ
- Why these too do not match the verses
- The delayed penalty in both accounts
- Were the two sets of verses revealed together?