What Is the Punishment for Adultery? (24:2), (4:15), (4:16)

24:2 prescribes 100 lashes for men and women equally. 4:15 prescribes lifelong house arrest for women. 4:16 appears to let men off if they repent. The claim is that these verses contradict each other - both internally and across gender lines.

The false claim: The Quran gives three contradictory punishments for adultery, with different standards applied to men and women.

The contradiction dissolves once the subject of 4:15 and 4:16 is correctly identified. These verses do not address adultery.

[24:2] The adulteress and the adulterer you shall whip each of them a hundred lashes. Do not be swayed by pity from carrying out GOD's law, if you truly believe in GOD and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their penalty.

24:2 establishes the punishment for adultery - one hundred lashes for both the man and the woman equally. The equal treatment of both genders in this verse is explicit and unambiguous.

4:15 and 4:16 address a different act entirely. Reading them in context reveals that they concern a different sexual transgression - and that the rulings given are provisional in nature, explicitly contingent on further revelation clarifying the matter. The confinement described in 4:15 and the instruction to leave men alone if they repent in 4:16 are not established punishments for adultery but temporary guidelines for a different situation, addressed to a community still receiving ongoing revelation. The verses themselves signal this provisional character.

The punishment for adultery is 24:2 - one hundred lashes, applied equally to men and women. 4:15 and 4:16 concern a separate matter and do not constitute an alternative adultery ruling that could contradict it. The apparent contradiction between equal treatment in 24:2 and unequal treatment in Sura 4 does not exist because the verses are not addressing the same act.