[citation needed] The surah begins with various explanations and decrees on or relating to corrupt sexual acts, family law, and specifications on the giving of testimony.

Most of the rules related to fornication, adultery and false accusations from a husband to his wife or from members of the community to chaste women, can be found in chapter 24, which starts by giving very specific rules about punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse (zināʾ): Flog the adulteress and the adulterer, each one of them, with a hundred lashes.

Let no pity for them cause you to disobey God, if you truly believe in God and the Last Day; and let their punishment be witnessed by a number of believers.Q24:2 The [unmarried] woman or [unmarried] man found guilty of sexual intercourse - lash each one of them with a hundred lashes, and do not be taken by pity for them in the religion of Allah, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day.

[1] Q24:4 And those who accuse chaste women, and produce not four witnesses, flog them with eighty stripes, and reject their testimony forever.

[1]In Tafsir Ibn Kathir, the prescribed punishment for making false accusations against chaste men or women is to flog them with eighty stripes, and reject their testimony forever.

[1] "And those who accuse chaste women then do not bring four witnesses, flog them, (giving) eighty stripes, and do not admit any evidence from them ever; and these it is that are the transgressors.

In keeping with the Verse of Light, the unbelievers too are explained in metaphor, returning to the deeply symbolic tone above: "And as for the unbelievers, their works are as a mirage in a spacious plain, in which a thirsty man thinks there to be water, until when he comes to it, he finds it is nothing; there indeed he finds God and He pays him his account in full; and God is swift in the reckoning; or they are as shadows upon a sea obscured, covered by a billow above which is a billow above which are clouds; shadows piled one upon the other; when he puts forth his hand, wellnigh he cannot see it.

The Book urges the believer not to fret, and not to accuse people of sin merely for the conditions of their birth or social status.