Adultery (Zina):Road To Destruction by Imam Karim AbuZaid

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Beneficent. A Surah which We have bestowed from on high and which We have ordained; and in it have We bestowed from on high clear revelations, so that you may keep them in mind. As for the adulteress and the adulterer, flog each of them with a hundred stripes, and let not compassion for them keep you from [carrying out] this law of God, if you truly believe in God and the Last Day; and let a number of believers witness their punishment. The adulterer couples with none other than an adulteress or an idolatress; and with the adulteress couples none other than an adulterer or an idolater. This is forbidden to the believers.Light, Al-Noor: 24: 1-3) The surah has a unique opening that is not repeated anywhere else in the Qur'an. What is special here is the use of the clause "We have ordained" in reference to this surah. We take this clause to imply an emphatic assertion that people must take everything that the surah includes in the same way. Social manners and morality are ordained in the same way as mandatory punishments. We need to remember here that such manners and morality are deeply rooted in human nature, but people tend to overlook them because of deviant social pressures and easy temptation. Hence, the clear divine revelations God has bestowed from on high puts them back before people's eyes, explaining the clear logic of undistorted human nature.