{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe09_024_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe09_024_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe09_024_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/sbe09/024.htm","summary":"This is Surah 24 (An-Nur, \"The Light\") from the Qur'an, presented in E.H. Palmer's 1880 English translation as part of the Sacred Books of the East series \u2014 a Victorian-era scholarly effort to render major world religious texts into English. The chapter addresses social and sexual conduct in the early Muslim community, opening with legal prescriptions: corporal punishment for fornication, the evidentiary standards required to prosecute or defend accusations of adultery, and prohibitions on slander against chaste women. A substantial portion responds to a specific historical incident of false accusation (understood by commentators as the slander against Aisha), using it to establish rules about rumor, testimony, and communal responsibility for gossip. The surah also legislates domestic privacy (knocking before entering homes, rules for slaves and children entering private quarters), modest dress for women, and the permissibility of eating in the homes of relatives. It culminates in the celebrated \"Light Verse\" (verse 35), a luminous mystical passage comparing God's presence to a lamp in a glass niche, which became one of the most commented-upon passages in Islamic theology and Sufi literature. The chapter is distinctive for weaving together concrete legal rulings and vivid cosmological imagery within a single address, framing both as expressions of divine guidance.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Qur'\u00e2n, ed. Palmer (SBE9): XXIV. The Chapter of...","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":2896}