The Light: Modesty, the Light Verse, and Vindication

An-Nur ('The Light'), 64 Medinan verses, legislates on modesty, lowering the gaze and covering, and on the penalties and procedures in cases of accusation. It vindicates Aisha against slander (the ifk, 24:11-20) and contains the celebrated Verse of Light, likening God's light to a lamp in a niche (24:35).

The account of the ifk, the slander against Aisha that circulated in Medina after she was inadvertently left behind during a campaign and returned separately in the company of a companion, is narrated at length in the hadith collections of al-Bukhari and Muslim as well as summarised in the surah's own verses, which describe a month of anguish before revelation declared her innocence and prescribed severe punishment for those who levelled the accusation without the required four witnesses (24:11-20). This episode is treated in Islamic legal history as foundational for the law of qadhf, false accusation of unchastity, requiring four eyewitnesses to a specific act, a standard commentators note makes successful prosecution of such accusations extremely difficult and was read by classical jurists as deliberately protective of reputation. The Verse of Light (24:35), likening God's guidance to a lamp within a glass within a niche, lit from a blessed olive tree, became one of the most commented-upon single verses in the Quran, generating an entire genre of mystical commentary, most famously al-Ghazali's Mishkat al-Anwar, reading the verse as a map of levels of illumination in the human soul.