Legal stories play an important role in the “nomian world” (Fraade 2005) evoked by the Qur’an and the Sīra, respectively. In the world of nomos, law and legal narrative are intertwined and reinforce each other. This paper takes the incident of the slander alluded to in Q al-Nūr 24:11–18 as a point of departure to examine strategies of legal storytelling in the Qur’an and the Sīra, notably the role of allusion and intertextual reference. The slanderous allegations to which Q al-Nūr 24:11–18 refer are traditionally linked to the story of the trial and exoneration of ʿĀʾisha, Muḥammad’s favorite wife, who is said to have faced allegations of adultery after a raid against the Banū Muṣṭaliq when she was inadvertently left behind by her kin. The ḥadīth al-ifk (“Story/Incident of the Slander”) has received some scholarly attention — it has, for example, been studied in light of communal debate and memory (Spellberg 1994, 61–99). However, the literary dimensions of the narration of the event in the Qur’an and in the Sīra and their role in shaping legal discourse have not so far been examined. In the Qur’an, the incident of the slander is evoked in abstract terms and embedded within regulations pertaining to adultery at the opening of Q al-Nūr 24, including the punishment of adulterers, marriage regulations for adulterers, etc. The ensuing narrative of the slander hedges this legal discourse by warning those who cast aspersion on the chastity of innocents, a danger explicitly regulated legally in vv. 4–10. In the Sīra, the story of the slander is narrated in detail as the story of a legal trial. ʿĀʾisha’s weeping and tears allude to the pre-Islamic poetic — especially elegiac — tradition in which a woman’s copious tears function as a signifier for a yet unanswered call for vengeance and restoration of justice addressed primarily to male kin. ʿĀʾisha furthermore declines to defend herself in her own words and instead refers to the trials “Joseph’s father” underwent (Q Yūsuf 12:18). This instance of Qur’anic intertextuality connects ʿĀʾishas experience during her trial to the salvation historical experience of Jacob who suffered through and patiently bore the betrayal of his closest kin, his own sons. I argue that in the Qur’an and in the Sīra, allusion and intertextuality serve to reinforce legal discourse on slander by providing an ethical and affective framing.