Answer
Wa `alaykum as-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
If they slander that innocent girl, accusing her of zina, then they are criminals. This is a major sin and an abhorrent forbidden action, because it is a slander against her honor and a transgression of the limits set by Allah.
Answering your question, we would like to state the following:
The Qur’an says, “…and those who accuse honorable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them with 80 stripes and never afterwards accept their testimony. They indeed are evildoers.” (An-Nur 24:4)
In another verse Allah says, “Lo! As for those who slander virtuous, believing women who are careless, cursed are they in the world and in the hereafter. There will be an awful doom.” (An-Nur 24:23)
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Avoid the seven sins that doom one to Hell.” They said, “O Messenger of Allah, what are they?” He said: “Associating others with Allah (shirk), witchcraft, killing a soul whom Allah has forbidden us to kill, except when it is lawful, consuming riba, consuming the orphan’s wealth, running away from the battlefield, and slandering chaste believing women who never even think of anything touching their chastity.” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Based on these tests, slandering an innocent woman is a major sin and an abhorrent forbidden action in Islam, because it is a slander against her honor and a transgression of the limits set by Allah.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.