[972] Either by voluntary confession of the offender or the testimony of four male witnesses to having actually seen the act take place. Otherwise, there can be no conviction.
[973] The ruling in this verse is applicable to unmarried fornicators. Execution by stoning is confirmed in the sunnah for convicted adulterers.
[974] i.e., Do not let sympathy for a guilty person move you to alter anything ordained by Allāh, for in His law is protection of society as a whole.
[975] Included in this ruling is the adulterer as well. Such persons cannot be married to believers unless they have repented and reformed.
[976] The husbands who have been betrayed.
[977] The phrase omitted is estimated to be "...you would have surely been punished, destroyed or scandalized," or "...you would have suffered many difficult situations."