The Fifth Testimony: Curse vs. Anger
وَٱلْخَٰمِسَةُ أَنَّ لَعْنَتَ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ إِن كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْكَٰذِبِينَ
wa-l-khāmisatu anna laʿnata llāhi ʿalayhi in kāna mina l-kādhibīn — And the fifth [testimony is] that the curse of Allah is upon him if he is among the liars.
The two fifth oaths of the spousal-accusation procedure of 24:6–9 (24:7, 24:9) are near-identical in structure but differ in four coordinated points: the case ending of 'the fifth', the divine sanction invoked (curse vs. anger), the pronoun (ʿalayhi 'upon him' vs. ʿalayhā 'upon her'), and the condition (his lying vs. his truthfulness). The differences track the asymmetry of the procedure: his fifth testimony intensifies his own four, while her fifth testimony directly contradicts his.
The procedure in 24:6–9 concerns a husband who accuses his spouse without witnesses other than himself: he testifies four times by Allah that he is among the truthful (24:6), and a fifth time invokes the curse of Allah upon himself if he is among the liars (24:7). She then deflects the punishment by testifying four times by Allah that he is among the liars (24:8), and a fifth time invokes the anger of Allah upon herself if he is among the truthful (24:9). The two fifth oaths are structurally parallel, but each difference does work. First, the case ending: 24:7 has al-khāmisatu in the nominative, coordinated with the four testimonies as a fifth item in a list, while 24:9 has al-khāmisata in the accusative, coordinated instead with the four testimonies she must give as the condition that deflects punishment in 24:8. Second, the sanction: his fifth invokes laʿnat, hers invokes ghaḍab. Third, the pronoun: ʿalayhi 'upon him' in 24:7, ʿalayhā 'upon her' in 24:9, so that each speaker calls the sanction down on himself or herself. Fourth, and most striking, the condition: he curses himself if he is among the liars, while she invokes anger upon herself if he is among the truthful. Each fifth oath is thus self-imprecatory, but the truth-condition it stakes is about the other party's truthfulness in her case and about the speaker's own in his. The parallel forms place the two spouses on equal footing as oath-takers, while the shifted conditions mark the confrontation: his fifth seals his accusation, her fifth directly contradicts it. 24:10 then follows the procedure with a counterfactual — were it not for Allah's bounty upon you and His mercy, and that Allah is ever One who repeatedly turns back (in acceptance) and wise — leaving the consequence unstated.
Where it occurs
- 24:7 The husband's fifth testimony: he invokes the curse of Allah upon himself on condition that he is among the liars, completing his five-fold testimony of 24:6.
- 24:9 The wife's fifth testimony: she invokes the anger of Allah upon herself on condition that he is among the truthful, completing the four testimonies of 24:8 that deflect punishment from her.
All Qur'anic expressions