What is your opinion of those who say that the phrase "and the old man and the old woman if they commit unlawful sexual intercourse" contains a linguistic awkwardness, and therefore it is not a verse?

The questioner : In the two Sahihs, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "A verse was revealed, and we memorized it and understood it," and he clarified that it concerns the muhsan, a married person in whom the signs of zina or pregnancy appear, or... But as for the verse, some of our scholars, may Allah preserve our Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, said that the wording contains an awkwardness that is not of the wording of the Qur'an. I wanted to ask about the authenticity of the wording of the verse itself... The wording is said to contain an awkwardness for one who memorizes the Qur'an or is accustomed to the Qur'an... Second, from this... the objection: if a young married man and an old unmarried man commit zina, an unmarried man commits zina, does the stoning apply to him or the flogging? The flogging applies to him. So I wanted to verify the correctness of the wording of the verse?

The Shaykh : The answer regarding the ruling is known, but regarding the taste you mentioned, quoting it, I say something here on this occasion. There is a difference of opinion on a matter of extreme precision: the Noble Qur'an is, without doubt, the miraculous speech of Allah, but they differed on whether it is all equal in its miraculousness, eloquence, and rhetoric, or whether it varies. What Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned in some of his letters is that the matter varies. This is the first answer. The second answer is from the doubts raised by those who deny abrogation, specifically the abrogation of recitation: that saying this opens a door of doubt regarding the written Qur'an. We say the matter is exactly the opposite. In the narration of the Salaf, and thus those who came after them from the Khalaf, where they narrated these narrations with chains of transmission, it indicates that the community did not follow the previous rule I alluded to earlier. And I answer the question of those who employ themselves in some charitable organizations and are given salaries from the funds of zakah. We said that in Islam, the end does not justify the means. On this occasion, I mentioned earlier, and I now recall the Salaf and the Khalaf up to today: of course, those among them who were knowledgeable did not believe that in Islam the end justifies the means. If the means leads to what is forbidden, it is forbidden; if it leads to consuming the wealth of people unjustly, it is invalid, and so on, and the opposite is exactly the opposite. This is an introduction to my saying that these early Salaf, when they narrated verses that we used to recite and then their meaning was abrogated, they narrated everything they knew, even if it opened doubt for some people regarding Islam, the Muslims, and the Book of the Lord of the Worlds, because they did not have the rule that the end justifies the means... So we know that the Qur'an is preserved between the covers of the mushaf, so we do not bring doubts upon ourselves. No! Their narration of such verses, which are known to us as abrogated in recitation, is proof that the community was narrating hadith free from any future-looking perspective that this might open a door for us that we should close now. No, it is obligatory to narrate what happened exactly as it happened. This is the first point.
Second, since this verse is abrogated, it is not covered by the saying of Allah the Exalted: This is the answer to the objection I raised earlier, because the care of the Muslims in preserving the Qur'an... They permitted narrating hadith by meaning, but it is not permissible for a Muslim to say, "Allah the Exalted said in the Noble Qur'an, the meaning of which is..." Either he memorizes it and recites it as it was revealed and as it was recorded in the mushaf, or he says, "By Allah, I am not recalling it, but I remember that in the Qur'an there is an indication of such and such." So they distinguished between narrating hadith by meaning, which is permissible, and the text of the Noble Qur'an by the saying of the Lord of the Worlds: . Accordingly, if a verse abrogated in recitation comes to us and no scholar has been aware of its sweetness and clarity, this is not a doubt in the correctness of the narration, but it is possible that the narration was narrated by meaning, but it has exited the status of being a Qur'an that is recited. The answer is clear.