The Office of the Judge (Kitab Al-Aqdiyah)

Sunan Abi Dawud - Hadith 3624

Hadith Text

The holy Prophet (ﷺ) said to the Jew: I adjure you by Allah Who sent down the Torah to Moses! do you not find in the Torah (a rule about a man) who commits adultery. He then narrated the rest of the tradition relating to the stoning.

Scholarly Commentary

This noble hadith demonstrates the Prophet's wisdom in adjudication and his method of establishing truth through previous divine scriptures. The Prophet's adjuration by Allah Who revealed the Torah serves multiple purposes: it affirms the divine origin of previous revelations, establishes common ground with People of the Book, and compels truthful testimony.

The reference to stoning for adultery confirms that this punishment was prescribed in the original Torah before its alteration. This establishes the continuity of Islamic law with previous divine legislation. The Prophet's approach shows how a judge may use strategic questioning to elicit truth from reluctant witnesses, particularly when dealing with followers of other faiths.

Scholars note that this incident occurred before the revelation of Quranic verses prescribing hudud punishments, demonstrating the Prophet's utilization of established divine laws during the transitional period. The methodology exemplifies proper judicial conduct - seeking evidence from knowledgeable sources regardless of their faith, while maintaining the dignity of the judicial process.

Legal Implications

This tradition establishes the permissibility of referencing previous scriptures in Islamic courts when they align with Islamic principles. It also demonstrates that stoning (rajm) for married adulterers has divine precedent across Abrahamic traditions.

The hadith shows the importance of judicial wisdom in extracting truth and the validity of administering punishments that were established in previous divine laws, provided they do not contradict final Islamic legislation.