The punishment for the married fornicator
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His Eminence the Shaykh: What is the punishment for the married fornicator?
The punishment for the married fornicator is stoning to death; he is brought before the people and stoned with stones that are neither large nor small until he dies.
The questioner: But how is the hadith of 'Ubadah ibn al-Samit (may Allah be pleased with him) in Muslim answered, in which he said: (One hundred lashes and stoning)?The Shaykh: The answer to that is: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned five people and did not lash them, so it appears that Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) lightened the burden for His servants; because the hadith of 'Ubadah ibn al-Samit, as it appears from its context, was the first thing to come regarding stoning in the Sunnah,For the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Take it from me, take it from me, for Allah has made a way out for them: the unmarried with the unmarried is one hundred lashes and one year of exile, and the married with the married is one hundred lashes and stoning) But after that, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned and did not combine lashing with stoning, so this constitutes abrogation, meaning that Allah the Exalted abrogated the combination of stoning and lashing.
If someone argues that the omission of lashing in the hadith does not indicate its absence, this is one of the most invalid claims, for in the story of the hired worker who committed fornication with a hired woman, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Go, O Anis, to this man's woman, and if she confesses, stone her) Did he say: Lash her?He did not say lash her! And likewise in the story of Ma'iz, he said: Go and stone him, and he did not say lash him, and likewise in the story of the two Jewish dhimmis, and if we concede with this and say it was done, then the fact that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) left off lashing indicates that leaving it off is permissible and that it is not obligatory.
As for the action of 'Ali (may Allah be pleased with him),So it was his independent legal reasoning, for he said: [I lashed her with the Book of Allah, and stoned her with the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah] and independent legal reasoning cannot be used to contradict the Sunnah.
But let it be in your minds that establishing fornication by testimony is difficult; no one comes and claims that he saw the fornicator's penis in the woman's vagina, this is very difficult. And we used to say in the past that it was permissible to act upon a captured image of fornicators, but it became clear to us that even the image cannot be acted upon; because it can be doctored, and that is easy, so now that science has advanced in these matters, everything has become possible, so we used to say at first: if the image is found showing that this man is committing fornication with a woman, this is one of the strongest pieces of evidence, but it has now become clear that there is doubt in the matter.
The punishment for the married fornicator is stoning to death; he is brought before the people and stoned with stones that are neither large nor small until he dies.
The questioner: But how is the hadith of 'Ubadah ibn al-Samit (may Allah be pleased with him) in Muslim answered, in which he said: (One hundred lashes and stoning)?The Shaykh: The answer to that is: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned five people and did not lash them, so it appears that Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) lightened the burden for His servants; because the hadith of 'Ubadah ibn al-Samit, as it appears from its context, was the first thing to come regarding stoning in the Sunnah,For the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Take it from me, take it from me, for Allah has made a way out for them: the unmarried with the unmarried is one hundred lashes and one year of exile, and the married with the married is one hundred lashes and stoning) But after that, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned and did not combine lashing with stoning, so this constitutes abrogation, meaning that Allah the Exalted abrogated the combination of stoning and lashing.
If someone argues that the omission of lashing in the hadith does not indicate its absence, this is one of the most invalid claims, for in the story of the hired worker who committed fornication with a hired woman, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (Go, O Anis, to this man's woman, and if she confesses, stone her) Did he say: Lash her?He did not say lash her! And likewise in the story of Ma'iz, he said: Go and stone him, and he did not say lash him, and likewise in the story of the two Jewish dhimmis, and if we concede with this and say it was done, then the fact that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) left off lashing indicates that leaving it off is permissible and that it is not obligatory.
As for the action of 'Ali (may Allah be pleased with him),So it was his independent legal reasoning, for he said: [I lashed her with the Book of Allah, and stoned her with the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah] and independent legal reasoning cannot be used to contradict the Sunnah.
But let it be in your minds that establishing fornication by testimony is difficult; no one comes and claims that he saw the fornicator's penis in the woman's vagina, this is very difficult. And we used to say in the past that it was permissible to act upon a captured image of fornicators, but it became clear to us that even the image cannot be acted upon; because it can be doctored, and that is easy, so now that science has advanced in these matters, everything has become possible, so we used to say at first: if the image is found showing that this man is committing fornication with a woman, this is one of the strongest pieces of evidence, but it has now become clear that there is doubt in the matter.