Insulting Someone in Saudi Arabia: Penalty, Insult vs Qadhf

A dispute over SAR 3,000 between two colleagues ended with a voice message in a private chat full of insults. Then one of them forwarded it to the department's WhatsApp group with a sentence attacking the other's honour. Now we have three incidents, not one: an insult in private, its publication in a group, and an accusation about honour. Each has a different rule.

The difference in two lines: qadhf (slanderous accusation) means accusing a person of adultery (zina) or denying his lineage, and its penalty is a fixed Sharia punishment (hadd) of eighty lashes if all its conditions are met. Other insults and accusations, such as “fraudster” or “thief”, carry a discretionary penalty (ta'zir) set by the judge. If they are published through technology and harm the person's reputation, they may reach one year in prison and a fine of SAR 500,000.

What is the difference between insult and qadhf in Saudi Arabia?

In common court usage, insult (sabb or shatm) means humiliating and hurtful words that attack a person's dignity: calling him worthless, cursing him, or belittling him. Qadhf is much narrower: accusing a person of adultery or denying his lineage. People use the word “qadhf” for any hurtful accusation, but in court the word has a specific meaning.

The penalty for qadhf is a hadd stated in verse 4 of Surat An-Nur: “And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses, lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept their testimony ever after. And those are the defiantly disobedient.” So in addition to lashing, the accuser's testimony is rejected. Applying the hadd has conditions relating to the accuser, the accused person and the words used, which the court examines. Ambiguous words and hints require examining their meaning and the speaker's intention.

The Law of Criminal Procedure treats the hadd of qadhf as a right of the person accused, so his waiver of it needs the court's approval (Article 29). Between spouses there is a special procedure called li'an (mutual oath of condemnation), in verses 6 to 9 of Surat An-Nur, which the Personal Status Law regulates in a claim to deny lineage (Articles 73 to 75). Its rules are not transferred to a dispute between other people.

So calling someone a “fraudster”, “thief” or “liar” is not qadhf in this sense, even if it is a serious accusation. It may be an insult or defamation depending on how it was published, but it does not lead to the hadd of qadhf.

What is the penalty for insulting someone on WhatsApp in Saudi Arabia?

There is no legal text setting a fixed penalty for every insult in a private message. The penalty here is discretionary (ta'zir), set by the judge according to the words, their circumstances, repetition and the situation of both parties. If you read a specific number as the penalty for every insult, it is usually taken from a judgment in another case, or from a law that does not apply to your case.

If the words move from a private chat to a group or a public account and harm the person's reputation, they may fall under paragraph 5 of Article 3 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law: “defaming others and causing them harm through the various means of information technology”. The penalty is up to one year in prison and a fine of up to SAR 500,000, or one of them. The Public Prosecution looks at the content, who saw it and the harm before deciding the legal description.

If the words have a sexual meaning that touches the person's body or honour or offends their modesty, they may fall under the crime of harassment, whose definition includes modern technology (Article 1 of the Anti-Harassment Law), punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of up to SAR 100,000, or one of them (Article 6).

How do you prove an insult and save the chat?

Screenshot the chat from its beginning, not only the offensive message. The judge will ask: what happened before it? Who started? If you submit the other person's words and remove your own replies, you weaken your position. Save the voice message itself, and screenshot the sender's number as it appears in the contact information, not the name you saved.

Keep the phone and do not delete the chat; it may need technical examination if the other person denies sending it. If the insult reached you through a third person who forwarded it, save his message too, because it proves the spread. Do not publish the chat to show people you were wronged; that hands your opponent a counter-complaint.

If the insult was face to face or in a call, write down the exact words on the same day, with the place, time and names of those who heard it directly. Do not lead a witness to a certain wording; his testimony is accepted for what he himself heard.

Someone wrote in the family WhatsApp group that his relative is a “fraudster”, and the relative replied with worse insults.

Here each of them may be held liable for what he wrote; the first insult does not permit replying in kind.

If the relative had saved the message and filed a complaint instead of replying, he would have remained only the complainant.

How do you file an insult or qadhf complaint?

File a report with the police; the Law of Criminal Procedure requires criminal investigation officers to accept reports and complaints for all crimes (Article 27). State in the report the exact words, who said them, how they reached you and who saw them, and make your request clear: the hadd of qadhf if the words were an accusation of adultery, a discretionary penalty, or compensation.

Crimes involving a private right are, as a rule, investigated only on the victim's complaint (Article 17), and you may bring the criminal case for your private right and pursue it before the competent court (Article 16). Your complaint counts as a claim for your private right unless you expressly waive it (Article 29). If you waive or settle, the private right case ends, but this does not stop the Public Prosecution from continuing the public right case (Article 23).

Financial compensation is also possible: the Civil Transactions Law makes compensation for a harmful act include moral harm caused by an attack on a person's honour, reputation or social standing, as assessed by the court (Article 138).

This is general information based on the official Arabic texts of Saudi laws, which prevail over any translation. It is not legal advice for your specific case.

Practical solutions for both sides

If you received the insult:

• Do not reply with a similar insult, or the complaint turns into two complaints against each other.
• Save the full chat from the beginning, with voice messages and the sender's number, or write down the words and witnesses on the same day if it was face to face.
• In your report, separate the insult in private, its publication in the group, and the accusation about honour, because their rules differ.
• If the words were in a post, ask the platform to remove it after documenting it.
• State in the report that you claim your private right. If you are offered an apology or settlement, write it down and understand the effect of your waiver before signing.

If you are the person complained about:

• Ask to see the exact words attributed to you, and check whether you really said them and in what context.
• Keep the full chat and delete nothing; it may show provocation or that the words were taken out of context.
• Do not send new messages to the complainant, and do not contact him or the witnesses with threats or pressure.
• If the message did not come from you, collect proof of that, such as an earlier report of hacking or a lost phone.
• A written apology and settlement may end the private right. Offer it calmly without admitting what you did not do, and get a lawyer if the words concern honour or lineage.

If you received offensive messages, or were summoned because of a chat, send screenshots of the full chat on WhatsApp, and we will explain the closest legal description of the incident and the next step.