Qadhf is a hudud offense under Islamic law consisting of accusing a chaste person of zina, unlawful sexual intercourse, without producing the four witnesses Islamic law requires to sustain such a charge. Grounded in Quranic verses 24:4 and 24:6, the prescribed punishment is eighty lashes, imposed whether the accuser produces no witnesses at all or witnesses whose accounts are inconsistent. By attaching a serious, fixed penalty to an unproven accusation of zina, the offense functions as a protective counterweight within Islamic criminal law, discouraging unsubstantiated sexual accusations and shielding the falsely accused.
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