لَّوْلَا جَآءُو عَلَيْهِ بِأَرْبَعَةِ شُهَدَآءَ فَإِذْ لَمْ يَأْتُوا۟ بِٱلشُّهَدَآءِ فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ هُمُ ٱلْكَٰذِبُونَ
Law lā jāʾū ʿalayhi bi-arbaʿati shuhadāʾ, fa-idh lam yaʾtū bi'l-shuhadāʾi fa-ulāʾika ʿinda'llāhi humu'l-kādhibūn
"Ought they not to have brought four witnesses to it? Since they did not bring the witnesses, it is they who, in God's sight, are the liars."
And the place of the repetition is worth noting: the fourth verse had laid down a ruling; the thirteenth applies that ruling to an event. The sūra, that is, works the rule it has laid down upon the case it has itself recounted.
I record this as an observation about the word order; the identity of the expression in the two verses is the wording of the text.
Here is the qualification in the sentence that must be read most carefully: ʿinda'llāh — "in God's sight".
The verse identifies the failure to prove with lying. But it does so with the qualification ʿinda'llāh.
In the classical commentaries the function of this qualification has been dwelt on, and the explanations transmitted are these:
| Explanation | Its content |
|---|---|
| 1 | The qualification conveys that the ruling is given not on the legal plane but on the divine one |
| 2 | The qualification does not exclude the possibility that the word is in fact true, and yet conveys that the ruling is framed so |
| 3 | The qualification reinforces the certainty of the ruling: "in God's sight" — that is, truly |
But what lies beneath all three explanations is the same, and I record it as my own reading: an unproved claim, even if it is true, has the standing of a lie from the moment it goes into circulation. For no one who hears it has anything in hand with which to verify it.
This is the sharpest statement of the matter of the burden of proof recorded at the fourth verse. The verse does not say "they lied" — it says "they are liars"; that is, it states a position. And what fixes the position is not the content of the claim but the absence of its proof.
The sentence draws a conclusion. And the manner of the drawing is logical: a condition had been laid down (four witnesses), the condition was not met, the ruling followed.
This is the working of the verb faraḍnāhā in the sūra's first verse. A measure had been notched; the measure is applied.