George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)
young child, the is to suckle it till it be two years old; the father, in the mean time, maintaining her in all respects: a widow is also obliged to do the same, and to wait four months and ten days before the marry again 1.
These rules are also copied from those of the Jews, according to whom a divorced woman, or a widow, cannot marry another man, till ninety days be past, after the divorce or death of the husband 2: and she who gives suck is to be maintained for two years, to be computed from the birth of the child; within which time she must not marry, unless the child die, or her milk be dried up 3.
Whoredom, in single women as well as married, was, in the beginning of Mohammedism, very severely punished; such being ordered to be shut up in prison till they died: but afterwards it was ordained by the Sonna, that an adultress should be stoned 4, and an unmarried woman guilty of fornication scourged with an hundred stripes, and banished for a year 5. A she-slave, if convicted of adultery, is to suffer but half the punishment of a free woman 6, viz. fifty stripes, and banishment for six months; but is not to be put to death. To convict a woman of adultery, so as to make it capital, four witnesses are expresly required 7, and those, as the commentators say, ought to be men: and if a man falsely accuse a woman of reputation of whoredom of any kind, and is not able to support the charge by that number of witnesses, he is to receive fourscore stripes, and his testimony is to be held invalid for the future 8. Fornication, in either sex, is by the sentence of the Korân to be punished with an hundred stripes 9.
If a man accuse his wife of infidelity, and is not able to prove ic by sufficient evidence, and will swear four times that it is true, and the fifth time imprecate God’s vengeance on him if it be false, she is to be looked on as convicted, unless she will take the like oaths, and make the like imprecation, in testimony of her innocency; which if she do, she is free from punishment, though the marriage ought to be dissolved 10.
1 Ib. chap. 2. p. 27. and chap. 65.
2 Mishna, tit. Yabimoth. c. 4. Gemar. Babyl. ad eund. tit. Maimon. in Halach. Girushin, Shylhân Aruch, part 3.
3 Mishna, & Gemara, & Maimon. ubi supra, Gem. Babyl. ad tit. Cecuboth, c. 5: & Jof. Karo, in Shylhân Aruch, c. 50. §. 2. V. Seldeni Ux. Hebr. l. 2. c. 11, and l. 3. c. 10, in sin.
4 And the adulterer also, according to a passage once extant in the Korân, and still in force as some suppose. See the notes to Kor. c. 3. p. 37. and the Prel. Disc. p. 67.
5 Kor. chap. 4. p 62. See the notes there.
6 Ibid, p. 64.
7 Ibid, p. 62.
9 Ibid. p. 287. This law relates not to married people, as Selden supposes; Ux. Heb. l. 3. c. 12.
10 Ibid. p. 288. See the notes there.
