"In one session or multiple sessions, and he must explicitly state the reality of intercourse, and he must not retract his confession until the hadd is fully carried out against him"

The Shaykh : Regarding the second condition, he said: "Four times in one session or multiple sessions". The author mentioned "one session or multiple sessions" because some scholars say that it must be in a single session, and if it is in multiple sessions, it is not valid, as is the case with testimony.
He said: "And he must explicitly state the reality of intercourse". Who must state it explicitly?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : The one who confesses, "by stating the reality of intercourse", not by using euphemisms for intercourse, meaning sexual intercourse. He should say that he had intercourse with her. It is not sufficient for him to say, "I came to her," or "I had intercourse with her," or "I committed zina with her." Why? Because "I came to her" could mean he visited her as a guest. "I had intercourse with her" could mean he gathered with her. This is why it is said that the tanwin (indefinite article) does not combine with the idafah (genitive construction), meaning he does not accompany her or gather with her. He might say "he gathered with her," meaning he met her in a place. "I committed zina with her" is also not sufficient, because one might think that something that is not zina is zina, such as thinking that kissing is zina, looking is zina, enjoying what is below the private parts is zina, and the like. Therefore, he must state it explicitly. When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke to Ma'iz, he said, "No." Then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him, using this wording. He did not use euphemisms. The Messenger did not use euphemisms, even though it is not known that he (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke explicitly about intercourse except in this issue. That is, there is no hadith in which he (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke explicitly about intercourse except in this issue. He said to him, "Do not use euphemisms." He said: "Yes, I have committed a forbidden act from her, the kind of act a man commits with his wife lawfully." In a narration by Abu Dawud, meaning it is clear and explicit in wording, and he gave an example. All of this indicates that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) wanted to verify this with the man and be certain of it, and whether he knows what zina is or not. Therefore, he must explicitly state the reality of intercourse. The evidence is what you heard, that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) stated this explicitly to Ma'iz. As for the reasoning, it is apparent, because one might think that something that is not zina is zina, which would necessitate the hadd, so explicit statement was required.
The third condition for confession is "that he does not retract his confession until the hadd is fully carried out against him". "Does not retract" means he does not withdraw from his confession until the hadd is fully carried out against him. If he withdraws from his confession, it becomes forbidden to carry out the hadd against him, even if he says during the execution of the hadd, "I did not commit zina, I did not commit zina," the hadd must be lifted from him. Even if he wrote the confession with his own hand four times and then withdrew, his withdrawal is accepted, and it is not permissible to carry out the hadd against him. At that point, we need the evidence for this issue. The evidence is that when Ma'iz ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) began to be stoned, and the stones caused him pain and he tasted their touch, he fled until they caught up with him and completed stoning him. Then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when he learned of this, said, . The scholars said that this is evidence for the permissibility of the confessor withdrawing, and that if he withdraws from his confession, it becomes forbidden to carry out the hadd against him, even if it has already begun, and even if he is prompted to withdraw and he does, he is left alone and the hadd is not carried out against him. This is the evidence.
The second evidence: They said that this is what the Rightly Guided Caliphs (may Allah be pleased with them) ruled. It is known that the Rightly Guided Caliphs have a Sunnah to be followed, based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), . If they ruled that the confessor's withdrawal from his confession necessitates lifting the hadd from him, it is obligatory for us not to carry out the hadd against him, and it is forbidden for us to carry out the hadd. Thirdly: They said that the meaning necessitates lifting the hadd from him, because if he withdraws and says that he did not commit zina, how can we carry out the hadd on a man who says and shouts at the top of his voice that he did not commit zina? We are now carrying out the hadd against him because he denies it. Now he says, "Yes, I wrote my confession and I confirmed it in the court, but now I have withdrawn from my confession." We say, it is not possible to carry out the hadd against him. How can we carry out the hadd against him when he is now saying he did not commit zina? And the matter came from whom? From him. As long as it came from him, it is not possible to punish him with the hadd while he is now denying it.
The fourth matter: Analogy with the withdrawal of the witnesses. Because if four men testified against him regarding zina, and the judge ruled to carry out the hadd based on this testimony, and then they withdrew, saying, "By Allah, we testified, but we seek forgiveness from Allah and repent to Him. We have withdrawn from our testimony," then it is not permissible to carry out the hadd against him. Because the withdrawal of these witnesses is a defect in them, because they are liars in one of the two testimonies, or not? If it was in the first, they are liars, so it is not accepted. And if it was in the second, they are liars, so their testimony is not accepted. So they said that this is analogous to it, meaning that the confessor's withdrawal from his confession lifts the hadd from him, just as the witnesses' withdrawal from their testimony does. So how many evidences are there now?

The questioner : Four.

The Shaykh : Four from the Sunnah, and from the sayings of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and the second is analogy, and the fourth is the meaning. So how can we carry out the hadd on a person who denies it? And this is the madhhab of Imam Ahmad, Abu Hanifa, al-Shafi'i, and Malik in some circumstances.
And the Zahiriyyah said that his withdrawal from the confession is not accepted, and the hadd must be carried out against him. Between us and you is the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Do you accept referring to them for judgment? We accept, and it is necessary. They said that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says, . So if he testifies against himself with zina, he has established justice and testified against himself, and the description of the fornicator applies to him. And Allah the Exalted said, . So how can we lift this ruling which Allah commanded, which is contingent on a description that was established by the confession of the one who was described with it? This is not possible, because this is a ruling contingent on a description that was established, or was it not established? It was established. So once the confession is established, what lifts it? They said, and as for... Yes, they said, because the Messenger... by the Sunnah. They said, because the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said to Anis, , and he did not say "unless you withdraw." And if he did not say it, even though the need calls for it, it is known that it is not a condition that he not withdraw from his confession until the hadd is fully carried out against him, because the condition must be complete, otherwise the ruling cannot be applied without the completion of the condition. They said, and as for your saying that Ma'iz (may Allah be pleased with him) withdrew from his confession, this is a statement without knowledge. And Ma'iz (may Allah be pleased with him) did not withdraw from his confession. He fled, and this does not indicate his withdrawal from his confession at all. And whoever claims that that was a withdrawal from his confession has said something without knowledge. And Allah has forbidden us to say without knowledge in His saying, . Yes, Ma'iz's fleeing might be a withdrawal from the request to carry out the hadd against him. So in the first instance, he wanted the hadd to be carried out against him, and in the second instance, he wanted the hadd not to be carried out against him, and the repentance to be between him and Allah. For this reason, the Messenger of Allah said, . So does this indicate that the ruling of the confession remains, or not?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : because there is no repentance except from zina, so the ruling of the confession remains; the Messenger did not say, "Why did you not leave him?" because his confession was lifted. He said And we say that the story of Ma'iz contains no evidence whatsoever of his retracting his confession, but it contains evidence that he retracted his request for the hudud punishment to be carried out on him, and he wanted that matter to be between him and his Lord. This is the meaning of his saying, peace and blessings be upon him, In that case, there is no evidence in the hadith for what you claimed. Rather, if it is not evidence against you, it is not evidence for you. And it is closer to being evidence against them than it is to being evidence for them, because the Messenger's confirmation that he repents is evidence that the sin is established against him. If that were the consequence of his confession, the ruling of the sin would be lifted from him. For this reason, if a man came to us confessing that he committed zina and requesting the hudud punishment, and we prepared the means to carry out the hudud on him and brought a basket full of stones to stone him, and he looked at the stones and said, "O people, let me repent to Allah," what would we say to him? We must let him repent to Allah, because the Messenger said However, if he were to say, "I did not commit zina," there is a difference between the two meanings. This is because this man is trying to remove from himself a description that has been established against him by his confession. If we were to accept the offender's retraction of his confession, no hudud punishment would be carried out in this world, because anyone who knows that he will be punished in this world might retract his confession, unless Allah wills otherwise. As the Shaykh al-Islam indicated in his *Fatawa*, if we were to say that a person's retraction of his confession is accepted, then every person who fears the punishment would initially have the intention to purify himself through the punishment, but then, when it is delayed, he would say that this thing did not happen to him. There is a clear difference between retracting the confession and retracting the request for the hudud punishment to be carried out, and this is very obvious.
Now, as for your saying that it is analogous to testimony, this is a statement of extreme weakness; it is an analogy of extreme weakness. Is it possible for witnesses to make a mistake or commit aggression? Their mistake is such that they think this man is the one who committed zina, while it is someone else, but he resembles him, so they believe with certainty that this is the man and testify to what they believed, while in reality it is someone else. Is this possible or not? But is it possible for a person to make a mistake about himself? He says he committed zina when he did not?

The questioner : No.

The Shaykh : This is not possible. It is also possible that the witnesses have no mistake, but they have aggression. They wanted to entangle the person against whom they testified, so they testified against him with zina, while he did not commit zina at all. Is this possible or not? Aggression is possible, but a person’s aggression against himself is far-fetched. A person’s aggression against himself by going to testify and smearing himself with zina and accepting the punishment while he is lying is the farthest thing possible. But is the lying of the witnesses possible or not? It is possible. They might lie and testify, and then afterwards they regret it and say, “How did we testify? We smeared his honor and exposed him to punishment, which might be stoning,” so they retract. So, analogizing this to that is the farthest thing possible. As for their saying that the meaning necessitates it, how do we carry out the hadd on a man who is shouting at the top of his voice that he did not do it? We would say, “By Allah, we did not wrong him. We carried out the hadd against him based on his confession. We did not wrong him.” And is his lying in the retraction closer to his lying in the confession, or is it not obvious? His lying in the retraction is closer to his lying in the confession, because it is far-fetched for a person to confess to himself that he committed zina when he did not, but it is close for him to retract his confession when he sees that the hadd will be carried out against him and he has already confessed. So the stronger position in my view in this issue is the position of the Zahiris, which is that his retraction from the confession is not accepted.
As for the judgments of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, I have not looked into their texts. So perhaps there are things similar to what happened to Ma‘iz, and they ruled on them, and the scholars who held this opinion thought that it was a case of retracting the confession, whereas it is not a retraction from the confession, as you have understood.
We need to look into the texts transmitted from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, because contradicting the Rightly Guided Caliphs is not a trivial matter. We are accusing our opinion in comparison to their statement. However, in terms of looking into the evidence, there is no doubt that the stronger position is the position of the Zahiris, especially if there are indications pointing to that, such as if this man is a thief. He stole and we caught him. He came and confessed. We did not witness him stealing on the day he stole; he stole the goods, but we did not witness it, and we caught him. He said, “Yes, I stole.” They said, “How did you steal?” He said, “Come, I will show you.”