And when the term 'the chaste' is general for wives, and they have a ruling different from what has preceded, He excludes them with His saying: ﴿And those who accuse﴾ meaning by fornication ﴿their wives﴾ meaning from the believing free women, the maidservants, and the disbelievers ﴿and they do not have﴾ by that ﴿witnesses except themselves﴾ and this implies that if the husband is one of the four, it is sufficient. However, this understanding is refuted by the fact that it is a narration of an occurrence with no witnesses in it, and His saying in the previous verse: ﴿Then they did not bring four witnesses﴾ [An-Nur: 4] necessitates that the witnesses are not the accuser. Perhaps he excluded him from the witnesses because the li'an (mutual cursing) occurs with the wording of testimony. And the position of Ash-Shafi'i, may Allah be pleased with him, is that he does not accept in this matter against his wife - Ibn Ar-Rif'ah said in Al-Kifayah: for two reasons: one of them is that fornication exposes the right of the husband, for the fornicator enjoys the benefits that are due to him, so his testimony in its description involves proving the wrongdoing of another on what is due to him, thus it is not accepted, just as if he testified that he wronged his servant. The second is that whoever testifies to the fornication of his wife, his very testimony indicates the display of enmity, for her fornication stirs his heart by soiling his bed and bringing shame upon him and upon his child. This is more intense in enmity than the pain of beating and foul cursing. Al-Qadi Al-Husayn said: And to this reason, Ash-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him, referred, which was narrated by Al-Qadi Abu Al-Tayyib in the chapter of the punishment for the highway robber from Sheikh Abu Hamid.

﴿So the testimony of one of them﴾ meaning against the one who accused her ﴿is four testimonies﴾ from five in contrast to four witnesses ﴿by Allah﴾ meaning coupled with this noble and greatest name that necessitates the presence of all attributes of majesty and beauty ﴿Indeed, he is among the truthful﴾ meaning in what he accused her of.