An-Nur

An-Nur, "The Light," is the twenty-fourth surah — 64 verses revealed in Medina.¹ It announces itself as "a surah which We have sent down and made [that within it] obligatory," and most of it is law — but it is named for a single verse at its center, the Verse of Light.

What it is about

The surah is about protecting people: their bodies, their reputations, their homes and their privacy. It legislates against unlawful sex, but places a heavier and more immediate burden on anyone who spreads an accusation of it. It answers a slander that had shaken the Prophet's ﷺ own household. It sets rules for entering other people's homes and for modesty between men and women. And in the middle of all this it turns to God as "the Light of the heavens and the earth."

How it unfolds

The penalty — and the burden on the accuser. The surah opens with its most severe verse: "The [unmarried] woman or [unmarried] man found guilty of sexual intercourse — lash each one of them with a hundred lashes."² (The bracketed word is the translators' clarification, reflecting how classical commentators read the verse.) It then turns at once to the accuser: "those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses — lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after."³ Classical jurists held the offense proven only by four witnesses to the act itself or by a freely made confession, and they drew the penalty for married offenders from the Sunnah rather than from this verse. A separate procedure of sworn oaths is given for a husband who accuses his wife without witnesses.

The slander. The surah's central passage answers "those who came with falsehood" — the rumor spread against 'A'isha after she was left behind by a returning expedition. It rebukes the believers who repeated it: "Why, when you heard it, did not the believing men and believing women think good of themselves [i.e., one another] and say, 'This is an obvious falsehood'?... you received it with your tongues and said with your mouths that of which you had no knowledge and thought it was insignificant while it was, in the sight of Allah, tremendous."⁴ It then asks those who had been wronged to forgive: "let them pardon and overlook. Would you not like that Allah should forgive you?"⁵

Homes and modesty. Believers are not to "enter houses other than your own houses until you ascertain welcome and greet their inhabitants," and if told to go back, they must go back.⁶ Men are told first "to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts," and then women likewise, "and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests." The passage ends: "turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers."⁷

The Light. At the surah's heart: "Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp; the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills."⁸ Against it stand the deeds of those who deny, "like a mirage in a lowland which a thirsty one thinks is water," or "darknesses within an unfathomable sea."⁹

A promise and a household. God promises the believers who do good that He will "grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth" and "substitute for them, after their fear, security."¹⁰ The surah closes with the manners of a household — times of privacy when even children and servants must ask permission to enter — and of the community's conduct with the Prophet ﷺ.

Key themes

Reputation is sacred. The surah treats a false accusation as a grave offense in its own right, punishable and disqualifying.

Evidence before accusation. Rumor, however widely repeated, is condemned; the standard of proof is set deliberately high.

Modesty for both sexes. The instructions begin with men and extend to women, and both are addressed together in the call to repentance.

Light as guidance. The Verse of Light frames the whole surah's law as illumination rather than restriction.

Why it matters

An-Nur is the Quran's principal surah on sexual ethics, privacy and the protection of reputation, and the source of the rules on modest dress and on seeking permission to enter homes. It also records one of the most painful episodes of the Prophet's ﷺ life and the Quran's vindication of 'A'isha. Its Verse of Light has been among the most meditated-upon passages in all of Islamic thought. To read An-Nur in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.