Surah 33. Al-Ahzab, Ayah 30

Regarding this connotation of the term fahishah, see surah {4}, note [14]. According to Zamakhshari, in his commentary on the present verse, this term comprises all that may be described as a "gross sin" (kabirah).

"Evident unseemly conduct" i.e., proved misconduct, as opposed to false slanders from enemies. Such slanders were of no account, but if any of them had behaved in an unseemly manner, it would have been a worse offence than in the case of ordinary women, on account of their special position. Of course none of them were in the least guilty.

Cf. xxxiii. 19 and n. 3692. The punishment in this life for a married woman's unchastity is very severe: for fornication, public flogging with a hundred stripes, under xxiv. 2; or for lewdness (see iv. 15) imprisonment; or stoning to death for adultery, according to certain precedents established in Canon Law. But here the question is not about this kind of punishment or this kind of offence. Even minor indiscretions, in the case of women who were patterns of decorum, would have been reprehensible; and the punishment in the Hereafter is on a higher plane, which we can scarcely understand.