The Book on Legal Punishments (Al-Hudud)

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The Messenger of Allah said: ‘The pen is lifted from three: the sleeper until he wakes, the child until he reaches maturity, and the mentally incapacitated until he regains reason.’ This is also reported from ʿĀʾishah. The report from ʿAlī is ḥasan gharīb through this chain, though it is narrated through other routes. Some versions say, ‘the boy until he has a wet dream.’ We do not know that al-Ḥasan heard it from ʿAlī. It is also narrated by ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib from Abū Ẓabyān from ʿAlī, while al-Aʿmash narrates it from Abū Ẓabyān through Ibn ʿAbbās from ʿAlī as a statement of ʿAlī, not attributing it to the Prophet. Scholars act upon this report. Abū Ẓabyān was Ḥuṣayn ibn Jundab.

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The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Ward off the prescribed punishments from Muslims as much as you can. If a way out can be found for someone, let him go, for it is better for a ruler to err in pardoning than to err in punishing.’

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Wakīʿ narrated a similar report from ʿĀʾishah, but did not attribute it to the Prophet. This is also reported from Abū Hurayrah and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr. The version attributed to the Prophet is known only through Muḥammad ibn Rabīʿah, from Yazīd ibn Ziyād al-Dimashqī, from al-Zuhrī, from ʿUrwah, from ʿĀʾishah; Wakīʿ’s version, which is not attributed to the Prophet, is more authentic. Similar statements are reported from several Companions. Yazīd ibn Ziyād al-Dimashqī is weak in hadith, whereas Yazīd ibn Abī Ziyād al-Kūfī is more reliable and earlier.

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The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Whoever relieves a believer of one of the hardships of this world, Allah will relieve him of one of the hardships of the Hereafter. Whoever conceals a Muslim’s faults, Allah will conceal his faults in this world and the Hereafter. Allah helps a servant as long as the servant helps his brother.’ This is also reported from ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir and Ibn ʿUmar. Several narrators transmitted it from al-Aʿmash, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, with wording similar to Abū ʿAwānah’s version.

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Asbaṭ ibn Muḥammad narrated a similar report from al-Aʿmash, who said, ‘I was informed by someone,’ from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah. This version appears more authentic than the first. ʿUbayd ibn Asbaṭ ibn Muḥammad reported this wording from his father, from al-Aʿmash.

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The Prophet said: ‘A Muslim is a Muslim’s brother: he does not wrong him or abandon him. Whoever meets his brother’s need, Allah will meet his need; whoever relieves a Muslim of hardship, Allah will relieve him of a hardship on the Day of Resurrection; and whoever conceals a Muslim’s faults, Allah will conceal his faults on the Day of Resurrection.’ This report from Ibn ʿUmar is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ gharīb.

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The Prophet asked Māʿiz ibn Mālik, ‘Is what I have heard about you true?’ Māʿiz asked what he had heard, and the Prophet replied, ‘That you had intercourse with so-and-so’s servant girl.’ Māʿiz said yes, then testified four times. The Prophet ordered that he be stoned. This report from Ibn ʿAbbās is ḥasan. Shuʿbah narrated it from Simāk ibn Ḥarb, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, without mentioning Ibn ʿAbbās in the chain.

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Māʿiz al-Aslamī came to the Messenger of Allah and confessed to adultery. The Prophet turned away from him, but Māʿiz approached him from another side and repeated his confession; the Prophet turned away again. When Māʿiz repeated it a fourth time, the Prophet ordered that he be taken to al-Ḥarrah and stoned. When he felt the stones, Māʿiz fled, running until he passed a man carrying a camel jawbone. The man struck him with it, and the people continued striking him until he died. When they told the Messenger of Allah that Māʿiz had fled after feeling the stones and facing death, he said, ‘Why did you not leave him?’ This report is ḥasan and is also narrated through other routes from Abū Hurayrah. A similar report is narrated from Jābir.

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A man from Aslam came to the Prophet and confessed to adultery. The Prophet turned away each time until the man had testified against himself four times. The Prophet asked whether he was insane and whether he had been previously married; the man said no and yes, respectively. The Prophet ordered that he be stoned at the prayer ground. When the stones hurt him, he fled, but was caught and stoned until he died. The Messenger of Allah spoke well of him but did not perform the funeral prayer for him. This report is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. Some scholars held that a confession must be repeated four times for the prescribed punishment to be carried out; Aḥmad and Isḥāq held this view. Others, including Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī, held that a single confession suffices. They cited the report of Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid, in which the Prophet told Unays to visit a woman and stone her if she confessed, without saying that she must confess four times.

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The Quraysh were concerned about the case of a Makhzūmī woman who had stolen. They asked who could intercede with the Messenger of Allah and said that only Usāmah ibn Zayd, beloved to the Messenger of Allah, would dare. Usāmah spoke to him, and the Prophet said, ‘Do you intercede regarding one of Allah’s prescribed punishments?’ He then addressed the people: ‘Those before you were destroyed because when a noble person among them stole, they let him go, but when a weak person stole, they carried out the punishment. By Allah, if Fāṭimah daughter of Muḥammad were to steal, I would cut off her hand.’ This report from ʿĀʾishah is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.

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ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said: ‘The Messenger of Allah stoned offenders, Abū Bakr stoned them, and I stoned them. Were it not that I dislike adding anything to the Book of Allah, I would have written it in the muṣḥaf, for I fear that people will come who do not find it in the Book of Allah and reject it.’ This report from ʿUmar is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ and is narrated through other routes.

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ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said that Allah sent Muḥammad with the truth and revealed the Book to him. Among what was revealed was the verse of stoning; the Messenger of Allah applied stoning, and we did so after him. He feared that people in later times would say they could not find stoning in Allah’s Book and thus abandon a duty Allah had revealed. He declared that stoning is due for a person who commits adultery after having been previously married, when established by witnesses, pregnancy, or confession. This report from ʿUmar is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ and is narrated through other routes.

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Two men came to the Prophet disputing. One asked him by Allah to judge between them according to Allah’s Book. The other, more learned, agreed and asked to speak: his son had worked for this man and committed adultery with his wife. He had been told that his son must be stoned, so he paid one hundred sheep and a servant to settle the matter. Scholars then told him that his son’s punishment was one hundred lashes and exile for a year, while stoning applied to the man’s wife. The Prophet swore that he would judge according to Allah’s Book: the sheep and servant were returned, the son was to receive one hundred lashes and a year’s exile, and Unays was sent to the woman; if she confessed, he was to stone her. She confessed, and he stoned her. This report is narrated from Abū Hurayrah, Zayd ibn Khālid, and Shibl.

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Mālik narrated a report with the same meaning through Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid al-Juhanī.

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Al-Layth narrated a report through al-Zuhrī with the same chain as Mālik’s report and similar meaning. The report from Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. Mālik, Maʿmar, and others narrated it from al-Zuhrī through ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah from Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid. They also narrated through this chain the instruction: ‘If a slave woman commits adultery, flog her; if she does so a fourth time, sell her, even for a rope.’ Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah combined two reports and mistakenly included Shibl in the chain of the first. The sound version distinguishes the reports: one comes through Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid; the other, about a slave woman, through Shibl ibn Khālid, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mālik al-Awsī, and the Prophet. Shibl did not meet the Prophet. Hadith scholars regard this latter chain as correct. The name is Shibl ibn Khālid, also said to be Shibl ibn Khulayl; ‘Shibl ibn Ḥāmid’ is an error.

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The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Take this from me: Allah has provided a way for them. For a previously married adulterer: one hundred lashes, then stoning; for a virgin: one hundred lashes and exile for a year.’ This report is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. Some Companions, including ʿAlī, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, and some scholars, including Isḥāq, held that a previously married offender is lashed and stoned. Other Companions, including Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, held that such a person is stoned without lashes. Reports about Māʿiz and others mention stoning without prior flogging. This latter view was held by Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad.

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A woman from Juhaynah confessed to adultery before the Prophet and said that she was pregnant. He summoned her guardian and told him to treat her well and return after she had given birth. When he did, the Prophet ordered that her clothes be secured around her and that she be stoned. He then performed the funeral prayer for her. ʿUmar asked how he could stone her and then pray for her. The Prophet replied: ‘She has repented with a repentance so great that, if divided among seventy people of Madinah, it would suffice them. Could you find a better act than giving her life for Allah?’ The report is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.

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Ibn ʿUmar reported that the Messenger of Allah stoned a Jewish man and a Jewish woman. The report is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ, and it includes a fuller account.

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The Prophet stoned a Jewish man and a Jewish woman. This is also reported from Ibn ʿUmar, al-Barāʾ, Jābir, Ibn Abī Awfā, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Juzʾ, and Ibn ʿAbbās. The report from Jābir ibn Samurah is ḥasan gharīb. Most scholars held that when People of the Book bring a dispute before Muslim judges, the judges decide between them according to the Book, Sunnah, and Muslim legal rulings. This was Aḥmad and Isḥāq’s view. Others said the prescribed punishment for adultery is not applied to them; the first view is more sound.

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Ibn ʿUmar reported that the Prophet, Abū Bakr, and ʿUmar each flogged and exiled offenders. This is also reported from Abū Hurayrah, Zayd ibn Khālid, and ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit. The report from Ibn ʿUmar is gharīb; several narrators transmitted it from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Idrīs as a report attributed to the Prophet.