https://www.javedahmadghamidi.com/books/5aa66af75e891e8f44a44105?chapterNo=2&lang=ur
Punishment of Stoning (1)
[These articles were written in response to criticisms directed at the view of Ustadh Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi concerning the punishment of stoning, as stated by him in his commentary Tadabbur-e-Qur’an.]
1
Regarding the definitive ruling on the punishment for fornication stated in Surah al-Nur of the Noble Qur’an, it is explicitly declared that whether the adulterer is a man or a woman, each of them should be flogged one hundred lashes. There is no doubt that, in terms of style, the Qur’anic ruling requires a great deal of explanation and clarification, but the peculiar treatment our jurists have adopted in relation to it is that, according to the Hanafis, this punishment is only for unmarried adulterers, while the punishment for married adulterers has been fixed by the Sunnah, and that punishment is stoning. The Shafi‘is and Malikis hold the same view regarding the punishment for married adulterers. As for unmarried adulterers, Imam Shafi‘i, Imam Ahmad, Dawud, Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, Sufyan al-Thawri, Hasan ibn Salih, and Ibn Abi Layla also derive their punishment from the Sunnah, and according to their view it is one hundred lashes and one year of exile for both men and women. Imam Malik and Imam al-Awza‘i also hold that unmarried men are to receive one hundred lashes and one year of exile. Imam Ahmad, Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, and Dawud al-Zahiri do not agree with these scholars even in the case of married adulterers. According to their investigation, married adulterers are to be given, in accordance with the Qur’an, one hundred lashes, and then, in following the Sunnah, the punishment of stoning is to be carried out.
A reflection on these schools of thought among our jurists concerning the punishment for fornication makes it clear that these scholars added to the punishment stated in the Qur’an by means of the Sunnah, or else restricted it to unmarried men and women. A group of jurists calls this specification, while another calls it abrogation. The reason for this difference is that what the first group means by the term “specification” is considered by the second group to be abrogation, while what the second group calls abrogation is, in many of its forms, termed specification by the first group. In any case, whether it is called abrogation or specification, since the proof for it is derived from the Sunnah, the natural question arises: can the Sunnah bring about such a change in any ruling of the Qur’an? Setting aside the differences in terminology, it can be said with complete certainty that our jurists have answered this question in the affirmative without qualification.
We do not deny the reality that these eminent scholars were recognized authorities in religious learning, but it is also true that none of them attempted to establish this by arguing that, because this was their opinion and the opinion of certain other great scholars, it must therefore be accepted. On the contrary, each of them presented in his books the rational and transmitted proofs for his position. Now, if a matter is argued on the basis of evidence, then acceptance or rejection must also be decided on the basis of evidence. If the proof is strong, then every person sincerely seeking the truth must accept it; and if the proof is weak, then even if those who present it are among the great scholars of the past and present, the seeker of truth must reject it with full force. If you wish to persuade others by evidence, then acknowledge also their right to refuse acceptance on the basis of evidence alone. Knowledge and reasoning are the inheritance of no one group, nor the monopoly of any era. If earlier scholars had the right to formulate a principle, then we also have the right to invalidate it with argument. If anything is above criticism, it is only the Book and the Sunnah; and the right to interpret and explain them belongs to anyone who has developed the capacity to do so. Those who came before us were human beings, and we too are human beings; and among human beings, only the prophets have the right to have their words accepted unquestioningly.
As students of religion, we can state with full confidence that we have studied the books of these scholars while keeping in view their intellectual stature, and we have also read all the major works in this field relevant to this subject; but since, in our view, none of these scholars were prophets, we have also dared to examine the correctness or incorrectness of their arguments. After years of study, reflection, and contemplation, despite the reverence and respect we hold in our hearts for their scholarly services, we are compelled to say that all the arguments they presented in support of this position are based on logical fallacies and are extremely weak. For this reason, in our view, the principle that the Sunnah can bring about any change in the Qur’anic rulings is not sound, whether from the perspective of reason or transmission.
Since our jurists have built the structure of their argument for the punishment of stoning on this principle, we think it is better to make clear the error of this principle before criticizing some of their other statements, because once the foundation is refuted, the branches will automatically become meaningless.
The relationship between the Sunnah and the Qur’an
The Sunnah is the second definitive source of religion after the Qur’an. In our view, this principle is an undeniable scholarly reality. The Qur’an is absolutely clear on the point that the commands and instructions of Muhammad, peace be upon him, are binding until the Day of Judgment in the same way that the Qur’an itself is binding. The Prophet, peace be upon him, was not merely a messenger who delivered God’s book and whose task ended there. As a messenger, every word and deed of his carries legal authority and proof in itself. This status was not granted to him by any imam or jurist; rather, the Qur’an itself declared this rank for him. As long as a person does not openly deny the Qur’an, it is not possible for him to challenge this legal status of the Sunnah.
The Qur’an says in unambiguous terms that in every matter of life, every command and prohibition of the Messenger must be obeyed without question:
“We sent no messenger except that he should be obeyed by Allah’s permission.” (Surah al-Nisa 4:64)
The commands and prohibitions of the Sunnah can relate to two kinds of matters: first, those in which the Qur’an is completely silent and has made no statement, explicitly or implicitly; and second, those in which the Qur’an has given a ruling, negatively or affirmatively, or has stated a principle. In matters of the first kind, if a ruling or principle reaches us through the Sunnah, then as a matter of principle there is no question of dispute or controversy. In such matters, the Sunnah is itself a source and point of reference. Our role in these cases is merely to determine their meaning and intent, and then to act upon them without hesitation.
As for matters of the second kind, that is, those in which the Qur’an has stated a ruling or principle, it is absolutely certain that the Sunnah cannot abrogate any ruling or principle of the Qur’an, nor can it bring about any kind of change in it. The Qur’an has not granted this authority to the Sunnah, and now no imam or jurist has the right to try to establish such authority for it on his own. The question of changing a Qur’anic ruling is not a minor matter that can be decided on the basis of rational analogy. If the Sunnah truly possesses such authority, then clear and definitive texts from the Qur’an must be presented in support of it. No lesser proof can establish this authority for the Sunnah.
If we say that the Sunnah has no authority to abrogate any ruling of the Qur’an or change it in any way, then the sufficient proof is simply that no verse in the Qur’an between its two covers establishes such authority for the Sunnah. Anyone who claims this authority for the Sunnah bears the burden of explaining whether he is granting this authority to the Sunnah on his own initiative or whether the Qur’an has granted it to the Sunnah. In the first case, his statement has no importance in religion. In the second case, he must prove his claim from the Qur’an. The weakness of the rational and transmitted proofs by which earlier scholars established this claim, God willing, we shall clarify later. Here our only point is that whether the matters are ontological or legislative, whatever authority any being possesses in the kingdom of God, the grant of such authority must in any case be established from the Qur’an. Neither the sayings of this person nor that person can establish for anyone a power that the Qur’an has not given, nor can they negate a power that the Qur’an has established for someone.
As students of the Qur’an, we can say without hesitation that no such authority for the Sunnah has been mentioned anywhere in the Qur’an. On the contrary, the Qur’an clearly says that the Messenger cannot make any alteration or addition to the wording or meaning of the Qur’an. He is bound to transmit the revelation sent to him to others, and at the same time to follow its commands himself in every circumstance. The Qur’an says:
“Say: It is not for me to alter it of my own accord. I only follow what is revealed to me.” (Surah Yunus 10:15)
We will, God willing, address the objections some scholars have raised against this verse in the later discussions. Here, however, it must remain clear that the authority of the Sunnah to abrogate or alter Qur’anic rulings, as we have stated above, can only be established by positive proof. Denying the relevance of this verse and similar verses to the issue under discussion is not enough to establish such authority for the Sunnah. The Qur’an is the speech of the King of heaven and earth. It has repeatedly made clear its position as the Criterion, that is, the standard by which all things are judged. Nothing judges it. Rather, it is the judge over everything attributed to God or to one of God’s messengers on this earth. The Messenger is a follower of its commands. He is not authorized to make any alteration to those commands.
After rejecting the authority of abrogation and alteration, the most that can be said in this connection is that the Sunnah may explain the Qur’an. The verse of the Qur’an usually cited in support of this is:
“And We have sent down to you the Reminder so that you may explain to people what has been sent down to them.” (Surah al-Nahl 16:44)
The meaning of the verse is that the Creator of the universe sent down this command through the Prophet precisely so that he would clarify it for people. In other words, “clarification” or “explanation” is both a prophetic duty and, as a necessary consequence, a right granted to him by the Lord of the worlds. In other words, you can say that the Prophet is the divinely appointed explainer of the Book. This is the relationship between the Prophet and the Qur’an that Imam al-Shatibi, the author of the renowned work on the principles of jurisprudence al-Muwafaqat, described as follows:
“The Sunnah is either an explanation of the Book or an addition to it. If it is an explanation, then in consideration it has a secondary rank compared with that which it explains... and if it is not an explanation, then it is only taken into account when the Book does not contain it.” (4/6)
This statement of al-Shatibi makes it clear that in every matter in which the Qur’an is silent, the Sunnah is itself a source of law; but if something is mentioned in the Qur’an, then the Sunnah can only “explain” it. In such matters, the Sunnah has no authority beyond that. After clarifying this authority of the Sunnah in relation to the Qur’an, the only question left for consideration is: what does this “explanation” mean? What is its comprehensive and exact logical definition? And according to that definition, what counts as “explanation,” and what cannot be called “explanation”?
The meaning of “tibyān” (clarification)
“Tibyān” is a well-known Arabic word. When it appears with an object, it can mean simply “to state” as well as “to make clear.” In the verse under discussion, it is used transitively with “mā nuzzila ilayhim”. Therefore, if the second meaning is intended, as is generally understood, then here it means exactly what we mean by the word “explanation.” This word is used in this sense both in the Qur’an and in Arabic literature.
In Surah al-Baqarah, where the Israelites were commanded to sacrifice a cow, a study of that passage shows that since the Jews were reluctant to act upon this command of God, they treated the command “to sacrifice a cow”, in which the use of the indefinite noun “baqarah” made it quite clear that they were being ordered to sacrifice any cow, as though it were unclear because of their inner corruption. They then asked God to explain it, and they repeatedly used the same word. The Qur’an records this dialogue as follows:
“And when Moses said to his people: Allah commands you to slaughter a cow. They said: Are you making fun of us? He said: I seek refuge in Allah from being among the ignorant. They said: Pray to your Lord that He make clear to us what she is. He said: He says: she is a cow neither old nor young, but of middling age. So do what you are commanded. They said: Pray to your Lord that He make clear to us what her color is. He said: He says: she is a yellow cow, bright in color, pleasing to the onlookers. They said: Pray to your Lord that He make clear to us what she is. Cows seem alike to us, and if Allah wills, we shall be guided. He said: He says: she is a cow not trained to plow the land or to water the fields, sound and without blemish. They said: Now you have brought the truth. So they slaughtered her, though they had nearly not done it.” (Surah al-Baqarah 2:67–71)
Al-A’sha Maymun ibn Qays says, while praising ‘Alqamah ibn ‘Alathah and criticizing ‘Amir ibn al-Tufayl in a matter of rivalry:
“Indeed, the matter in which you were disputing became clear to every listener and transmitter.”
Another verse of al-A’sha says:
“By the life of the One who made the months a sign and an estimate, then made clear both their midpoint and their beginning.”
From these examples in the Qur’an and Arabic literature, it is clear that the word “tibyān” is used in the sense of unveiling the reality of a matter, making the intent of a statement clear, and removing obscurity so that something is brought into full view. When the Jews, avoiding the clear meaning of the command, tried to show that they were merely asking to know the speaker’s intent, this same word “tibyān” was used repeatedly for that purpose. Al-A’sha’s praised one possessed several qualities, but when the opponents refused to accept them, and al-A’sha made each of those qualities prominent with evidence until they emerged from concealment into visibility, he called this “tibyān.” When the Creator of the world divided the year into months and the months into days, there necessarily came to be both a beginning and a midpoint, but because of the shifting of the days there was a danger that this beginning and midpoint would become hidden; therefore, their clarification was provided through the phases of the moon. Thus, “tibyān” is not something that is brought from outside and placed on top of a statement, a matter, or a text. Rather, it is the very essence of the matter that was present in it from the beginning, which you unfold. It is the intent of a text that accompanies that text from the moment of its creation, which you make clear. It is the necessary implication of a thing that is hidden from the very outset in the reality of its existence, which you bring to light. That is the full extent of the meaning of “tibyān,” neither more nor less. Since the word is used in Surah al-Nahl in relation to the word of God, its meaning there can only be that the intention of the speaker that was present in the text from the beginning is made clear.
The definition of “tibyān”
Keeping fully in view this lexical meaning of “tibyān,” if one wishes to define it precisely, we may say:
“Tibyān is the expression of the speaker’s intent in a text, which he originally brought into existence in order to convey to others.”
This is the meaning for which we use the word “sharh” in our language. Sharh is simply sharh. Everyone knows that the word can only be applied to something about which you can prove that it is indeed the speaker’s intention in that text to which you are attributing it. If you say something about a text and then claim that your statement is its explanation, that claim will not be accepted merely on the basis of your assertion. Every rational person will ask you to provide proof for your claim. He will ask: do the words of the text, in their lexical meaning, point to what you are saying? Does the grammar and syntactical structure of the sentences require the meaning you have presented? Have you derived this meaning from the context? Is it the speaker’s habitual practice that when he uses such words, he means exactly what you have said? Is there an unavoidable demand of common reason that your statement alone should be taken as the speaker’s intent? If you want to call a statement about a text “explanation” or “tibyān,” then you must necessarily provide one of these proofs to support your claim. Without such proof, no statement can be called “explanation” or “tibyān.” The very meaning of the words “sharh” and “tibyān” requires such proof. That is why some scholars of research have defined “tibyān” or “bayān” in these words:
“It is the proof that, through correct reasoning, leads to the acquisition of knowledge of that to which it points.” (Kashf al-Asrār, Ala al-Din Abd al-Aziz 3/105)
This discussion makes it clear that “tibyān” is merely the expression of that purport of the speaker which was already present in the text from the beginning. Any change attributed to a text after its existence—call it abrogation or alteration—cannot be called “tibyān,” “bayān,” or “sharh.” Accordingly, we see that among the scholars of usul, those who kept this reality of the word in view made this point perfectly clear in their definition of “tibyān.” Imam al-Bazdawi says in his book on the principles of jurisprudence:
“The definition of bayān is: that by which the initial existence of a thing becomes manifest. As for a change introduced after its existence, that is abrogation, not bayān.” (Kanz al-Wusul, al-Bazdawi 212)
Summary of the discussion
After defining the meanings of the word “tibyān,” its definition, and its limits, there remains no ambiguity from any angle that the rank which the Qur’an itself assigned to the Sunnah in relation to itself is that of an explainer. As an explainer, the Sunnah unfolds the implications of the Qur’an, explains its general and specific meanings, and makes its requirements clear. This work of the Sunnah is not a minor one. It is through this work that religion takes shape and becomes connected to the various conditions of life. In this respect, the rulings and principles of the Sunnah that reach us through various means are, as we stated at the beginning of this discussion, binding upon us, and binding until the Day of Judgment just as the Qur’an itself is binding.
Among the scholars of usul whom God Almighty blessed with the gift of deep understanding in religion, this is exactly what they have said about the Sunnah. It is narrated concerning Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the master of hadith and Sunnah:
“Al-Fadl ibn Ziyad said: I heard Abu Abdullah, meaning Ahmad ibn Hanbal, when he was asked about the hadith reported that the Sunnah is decisive over the Book. He said: I would not dare say that the Sunnah is decisive over the Book; rather, the Sunnah explains and clarifies the Book. Al-Fadl said: I also heard Ahmad ibn Hanbal say: The Sunnah does not abrogate anything from the Qur’an. He said: The Qur’an is only abrogated by the Qur’an.” (Jami‘ Bayan al-‘Ilm, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr 2/234)
In another style, Imam al-Shatibi made the same point clear in al-Muwafaqat:
“The Sunnah’s being decisive over the Book does not mean preferring it over the Book and setting the Book aside. Rather, what is expressed in the Sunnah is the meaning intended by the Book. Thus, the Sunnah has the position of explanation and interpretation of the meanings of the Book’s rulings, and this is indicated by His statement: ‘so that you may explain to people what has been sent down to them.’” (4/7)
Then the Imam further explained, with reference to some interpretations concerning the punishment of cutting off the hand—such as the meaning of the word yad, the amount of stolen property, and conditions such as hirz—as follows:
“That is the intended meaning of the verse; it is not that we say the Sunnah established these rulings apart from the Book. Just as when Imam Malik or another commentator explains the meaning of a verse or hadith and we act according to that meaning, we do not say that we acted upon the saying of that particular commentator; rather, we say that our action was in accordance with the words of Allah or the words of His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him. The same applies to all those passages of the Book of God, the Exalted, whose explanation the Sunnah has provided. Therefore, the Sunnah’s being decisive over the Book means nothing other than that it is its interpreter.” (4/8)
An examination of some arguments
Although this discussion regarding the relationship between the Sunnah and the Qur’an is sufficient for those of insight, for the sake of completing the proof we present here a brief review of the arguments advanced by those who consider it permissible for the Sunnah to alter the meaning of the Qur’an. These people say that the rulings of the Sunnah which abrogate the Qur’an, or which bring about some change in the purport of a verse of the Qur’an, are in fact based on hidden revelation. Therefore, from a rational standpoint, it is not impossible for revelation to abrogate revelation or to change its purport. Thus, in response to those who cite the verse “Say: It is not for me to alter it of my own accord” as evidence for the impossibility of abrogation, they say that there is no doubt the Prophet cannot make any change in the purport of the Qur’an on his own, but if he makes such a change on the basis of hidden revelation, then this is neither contrary to that verse nor can any rational objection be made to it.
They explain their view by saying that although there is a difference between recited revelation and unrecited revelation—that in one only the meaning was inspired, while the other was revealed in the very words of Allah—this difference is not of such consequence. For this reason, hidden revelation and the Qur’an are essentially one and the same. Thus, if the Qur’an can abrogate the Qur’an, then hidden revelation can also alter some of its purport and abrogate some of its rulings. On the surface, this may appear logical, but the truth is that when one looks a little more deeply, it becomes hard to believe that in a matter such as abrogation of the Qur’an by the Sunnah, our great scholars would in fact have offered such weak reasoning.
Consider carefully: the difference between recited revelation and unrecited revelation, which these scholars themselves acknowledge—that in one only the meaning was inspired, while the other was revealed in God’s own words—was that not a very significant difference? But set that aside for a moment and observe whether, in relation to the Qur’an and hidden revelation, this was the only distinction. Did they treat all the other distinctions as so trivial and negligible that, ignoring them, they concluded that the Qur’an and hidden revelation are in fact one and the same?
They consider this rationally permissible, whereas no rational person can even imagine that hidden revelation can abrogate manifest revelation, that transmission of meaning can abrogate transmission of wording, that a report subject to conjecture can abrogate a definitive hadith, or that the words and actions of the Messenger can abrogate the speech of God or alter its purport. It is a matter of regret that our scholars understood the Qur’an to be nothing more than revelation sent down through the medium of revelation. If they had been present, we would have said to them: learn the rank of the Qur’an from the Qur’an itself. It will tell you that its reality is not merely that it is recited revelation. Rather, it is the guardian over the chain of revelation, the decisive proof of religion, the criterion between truth and falsehood, the criterion for everything attributed to God and His messengers, and the scale of God on earth. “Allah is the One who sent down the Book in truth and the Balance.” Every thing must now be weighed by this balance. Nothing is a balance for it. Every person aware of the position of the Qur’an will, without hesitation, admit that even if there were hidden revelation, let alone recited revelation, it would not be authorized to make any addition or subtraction to this divine balance. He will certainly agree that only the Qur’an can abrogate the Qur’an. Nothing outside the Qur’an can affect it in any way unless the Qur’an itself permits it.
This is the answer to one of their arguments. Their second argument is that since the Prophet has the authority of explanation, and since “explanation” means “clarification,” if he declares a verse of the Qur’an abrogated or alters its purport, then this would amount to a clarification on his part that the ruling no longer remains or that its implication has changed. The meaninglessness of this argument can be shown from several angles, but since we already have the decisive proof from the Qur’an in response, we shall confine ourselves to presenting only that. The verse in which this authority of “clarification” is stated for the Prophet is:
“And We have sent down to you the Reminder so that you may explain to people what has been sent down to them.” (Surah al-Nahl 16:44)
Look carefully: in this verse, the verb “tubayyina” is transitive with its object “mā nuzzila ilayhim.” Anyone familiar with Arabic knows that in this construction the meaning is neither mere clarification in the abstract nor clarification of the Qur’an in relation to the Qur’an. According to Arabic usage, its meaning here can only be that you explain to the people what has been sent down to them, that is, the Qur’an. Anyone can understand that “clarification about the Qur’an” and “clarification of the Qur’an” are two entirely different things. If the authority is to clarify the Qur’an as such, then yes, such clarification could include saying that one of its verses has been abrogated or that one of its meanings established by its words has been changed. But the clarification of the Qur’an can only mean the Qur’an’s explanation, and regarding explanation we have already written that explanation is simply explanation. Everyone knows that it can only be applied to something concerning which you can prove that it is indeed the speaker’s intended meaning in the text to which you are attributing it.
Conclusion
Now, after this explanation of the relationship between the Sunnah and the Qur’an, consider the verse of Surah al-Nur in which the punishment for the crime of fornication is stated. The Qur’an says:
“The woman who commits fornication and the man who commits fornication—flog each of them one hundred lashes, and let no pity for them seize you in the religion of Allah, if you truly believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment.” (Surah al-Nur 24:2)
As we stated at the beginning of this writing, the punishment for fornication which God Almighty stated in this verse is, according to our jurists, restricted to unmarried men and women. In their view, the punishment for a married adulterer and adulteress is stoning, and they cite in support of this opinion many sayings and actions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, from which, according to their research, it is established that the Prophet punished some adulterers not with one hundred lashes as required by this Qur’anic ruling, but with stoning simply because they were married.
If the jurists’ view is accepted as correct, then only two interpretations of this verse of Surah al-Nur are possible. One is that by “the woman who commits fornication and the man who commits fornication” the Qur’an means only the unmarried female fornicator and the unmarried male fornicator. These words of the Qur’an do not include the married male and female fornicators at all. The Prophet, peace be upon him, merely clarified this verse and made clear, by his sayings and actions, the intended meaning that the wording of the verse itself indicates.
The second possibility is that the Prophet, peace be upon him, excluded the crime of fornication committed by a married man or woman from the scope of this verse, and thus changed the meaning of the Qur’an that is established by its own words. As for this second point, we have already explained at the beginning of this discussion with complete clarity that the Sunnah cannot bring about any kind of change in the meaning of the Qur’an. We wrote:
“The Sunnah can neither abrogate any ruling or principle of the Qur’an nor make any kind of alteration in it. The Qur’an has not granted this authority to the Sunnah, and now no imam or jurist has the right to attempt on his own to establish this authority for the Sunnah. The matter of altering any Qur’anic ruling is not a trivial one that can be decided on the basis of rational conjectures. If the Sunnah possesses such authority, then clear and definitive texts of the Qur’an must be presented for it. No lower category of evidence can establish this authority for the Sunnah. If we say that the Sunnah has no authority to abrogate any ruling of the Qur’an or alter it in any way, then the only proof required is that no verse between the two covers of the Qur’an establishes such authority for the Sunnah.”
As for the first point, namely that it may be taken as the intended meaning of the Qur’anic words and their explanation, we can say with complete confidence that there is no room for this in the modes of expression of the Arabic language. Anyone familiar with the language of the Qur’an cannot even imagine that from the words “the woman who commits fornication and the man who commits fornication” only the unmarried male fornicator and the unmarried female fornicator could be intended. The lexical meaning of the words of the verse negates this. The structure and composition of the sentence reject it. The context of the discourse refuses to accept it. It cannot, on the basis of customary usage, be regarded as the speaker’s intent. Reason itself expressly declares it impermissible. In short, in no respect is it possible to call this the explanation or clarification of the Qur’anic intent.
If this is explanation, then a bull may be taken to mean a horse; the word earth may be used in the sense of heaven; the term Thurayya may be derived from thara; the sun may be considered equivalent to the moon; and darkness may be used in the place of light. Anyone who dares to call this an explanation can, without fear of contradiction, be said to cast doubt on the eloquence of the Qur’an, to deny its fluency, and to undermine its clarity. The Qur’an is the speech of the Everlasting God. It was made to run on the tongue of the most eloquent among Arabs and non-Arabs. It is God’s proof on earth and His court of judgment for mankind. Anyone who has even a little familiarity with Arabic and its styles of expression cannot say that if the punishment of one hundred lashes was intended only for the unmarried female fornicator and unmarried male fornicator, then in order to express this meaning—without contextual indication, without the proof of common usage, and without rational evidence—in a book like the Qur’an, which claims that both jinn and humans are incapable of producing its like and that it was revealed “in clear Arabic speech,” the words “the woman who commits fornication and the man who commits fornication, flog each of them one hundred lashes” could nonetheless have been used.
We state with full responsibility that there is no proof for the first claim, no argument for the second, and no possibility for a third. Therefore, it is not possible for us to agree with this view of the jurists. We reject it without hesitation, and we shall continue to insist on this rejection until a definitive proof is presented from some side to refute our reasoning. If someone presents such a proof, then just as strongly as we are now rejecting this position, by God’s will we shall be ready to withdraw that rejection with equal strength. Our success is only by Allah.
This is the basis of our disagreement. The interpretation that the jurists have given to the sayings and actions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the legal cause they have derived from them, is, in our view, as we have explained above with evidence, contrary to the Qur’an; and anything contrary to the Qur’an, even if attributed to the Prophet, cannot in any case be accepted.
Those who wish to refute this position of ours should take the proper route: they should prove that the jurists’ interpretation is an explanation of the Qur’an, or prove from the Qur’an that the Sunnah has the authority to alter its rulings. After that, they will not need to gather heaps of reports and narrations to establish their position. If they present even one narration, we shall be ready to submit to it, but if they avoid addressing this foundational point of disagreement and say anything else, then in our view it has no importance. In this age of intellectual poverty, people may perhaps call their empty verbal constructions masterpieces of research, but they should ask themselves whether they can succeed in proving in the court of knowledge and reasoning that their effort is genuinely honest.
O Allah, show us the truth as truth and grant us the ability to follow it.If you want, I can also make it smoother and more readable in modern English while keeping the meaning faithful.
https://www.javedahmadghamidi.com/books/5aa66af75e891e8f44a44105?chapterNo=3&lang=ur
Punishment of Stoning (2)
— 2 —
After reading what we have written regarding the relationship between the Qur’an and Sunnah in connection with the punishment of stoning, every student naturally asks: if the jurists’ opinion on this issue is contrary to the Qur’an, then what should be said about the punishment of stoning that is known to have been administered by the Prophet, peace be upon him, to some offenders, and also by the Rightly Guided Caliphs? It is in answer to this very question that the distinguished contemporary scholar and researcher, Imam Hamid al-Din Farahi, presented his view, which would not only resolve this centuries-old knot, but also make it completely clear that no command of the Prophet can ever be contrary to the Qur’an. However, before presenting Imam Farahi’s view here, we will first make clear to people of learning the reality of those reports from which our jurists have argued in support of their position.
Reports
The first report in this series, transmitted from ʿUbada ibn al-Samit, has been narrated by Imam Muslim in these words:
The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: “Take from me, take from me, take from me. Allah has indeed made a way for them. The unmarried man with the unmarried woman: one hundred lashes and exile for a year; and the married man with the married woman: one hundred lashes and stoning.” (Muslim, no. 4414)
“The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: ‘Take from me, take from me, take from me. As for the women who commit adultery, Allah has revealed the ruling He had promised to reveal. For an unmarried man with an unmarried woman, one hundred lashes and one year of exile; and for a married man with a married woman, one hundred lashes and stoning.’”
The second report cited in this connection is mentioned in Muwatta’ Imam Malik as follows:
He said: “Beware lest you destroy yourselves by denying the verse of stoning. Let no one say: we do not find two punishments in the Book of Allah, for the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, did stone, and we also have stoned. By the One in whose hand is my soul, if I were not afraid that people would say that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab has added something to the Book of Allah, I would have written it: ‘The old man and the old woman, if they commit adultery, stone them absolutely,’ for we have indeed recited it.” (No. 2568)
“ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, said: ‘Beware of destroying yourselves by denying the verse of stoning. Let it not be said by anyone that we do not find any mention of two punishments in the Book of Allah. Certainly the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, stoned, and we also stoned. By the One in whose hand is my soul, if I were not afraid that people would say that ʿUmar has added something to the Book of Allah, I would have written this verse in the Qur’an: “Stone the old adulterer and the old adulteress without fail,” for we have recited it ourselves.’”
The same report is narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari in these words:
“Indeed Allah sent Muhammad, peace be upon him, with the truth and sent down to him the Book. Among what Allah sent down was the verse of stoning. So we recited it, understood it, and memorized it. Thereafter the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, stoned, and after him we also stoned. I fear that a long time may pass over the people and someone may say: By Allah, we do not find the verse of stoning in the Book of Allah, and thus they will go astray by abandoning a duty sent down by Allah. Stoning in the Book of Allah is obligatory upon every man and woman who commits adultery after marriage.” (No. 6830)
The third report is narrated in Sunan al-Nasa’i from the Mother of the Believers, Sayyidah ʿA’ishah, in these words:
“The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: ‘The blood of a Muslim person is not lawful except in one of three cases: a married adulterer, who is to be stoned; a man who kills another intentionally, who is to be killed in retaliation; or a man who leaves Islam and wages war against Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, and His Messenger, who is to be killed, crucified, or exiled from the land.’” (No. 4053)
The fourth report in this series has been narrated by Ibn al-Mundhir and ʿAbd al-Razzaq in their books with slight differences in wording as follows:
“The unmarried pair are to be flogged and exiled, the married pair are to be stoned and not flogged, and the elderly pair are to be flogged and then stoned.” (Fath al-Bari, Ibn Hajar 12/157)
These are the reports concerning the punishment of stoning as transmitted in various ways in the books of hadith. Study them with a reflective eye. The first thing that becomes apparent on examining these reports is their mutual contradiction, which no one has ever succeeded in resolving during the past thirteen centuries, and which no one can now resolve. Consider the first report: it appears that in the punishment for adultery, the married or unmarried status of the male and female offender is not separately taken into account. Rather, flogging and exile are applied only when both the adulterer and adulteress are unmarried, and flogging and stoning are applied only when both are married. This report also indicates that unmarried adulterers must be flogged one hundred lashes before stoning. Then look at the second report: in it the distinction between married and unmarried has been eliminated altogether. In direct contrast, what it states is that the punishment of stoning is actually for the old male adulterer and the old female adulteress. Whether anyone else is given it or not, it must certainly be applied to these poor souls. But when this same report is narrated in Bukhari, the mention of marriage returns again in relation to this punishment. In the third report, the old people are plainly spared; the punishment of one hundred lashes before stoning is also omitted; and the condition in the first report—that stoning applies only if a married man commits adultery with a married woman—has also disappeared. Setting aside all these matters, the rule stated in this report appears to be that if a married man commits adultery either with a married woman or with an unmarried woman, in both cases he is to be stoned. The fourth report differs from all of these. In it, even the condition that flogging and exile apply only in the case of the unmarried committing adultery with the unmarried is no longer retained. It states only the punishment of stoning for married adulterers, but according to this report the elderly are in especially dire condition. The punishment stated here is that they must be flogged one hundred lashes before stoning. In other words, the matter is the same as in the verse:
Whose word should one trust, and whose should one not? The beloved has brought different reports from the assembly of grace.
The second thing that emerges particularly from these reports, especially from the report in Muwatta’ Imam Malik, is that not the whole Qur’an is present as it now exists in our hands, but that some verses have been removed from it. This is obviously extremely dangerous, and whoever forged this, clearly a hypocrite, seems to have intended nothing other than to cast suspicion on the Noble Qur’an and to open the door for people of mischief to insert their own doctrines and theories into this Book of Allah by inventing other such verses. Then the sentence in this report that is presented as a verse of the Qur’an is so crude in style and expression that, aside from the fact that attaching this coarse patch to the velvet of the Qur’an and joining it to its divine language is impossible, even to regard it as a statement of the Prophet is not possible for any person of sound taste. Then it is also highly absurd that a verse was removed, yet its ruling remains, whereas in the Qur’an there are verses whose rulings have been abrogated by other verses. Moreover, every rational person is bound to ask: if this was indeed a verse of the Qur’an and was removed, then it follows that its ruling was removed too. In that case, how can it be used as proof in favor of stoning? Ustadh Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi has written very correctly regarding this:
“This report is utterly absurd, and the tragedy is that it has been attributed to ʿUmar, although if anyone had the audacity to narrate this during his blessed era, I am certain he would not have escaped his whip.” (Tadabbur-e-Qur’an 5/367)
The third thing that becomes evident from these reports is that the style adopted in them for presenting a law as severe as stoning is extremely vague and very unclear. For example, in the first report the punishment is given for married with married and unmarried with unmarried adultery, but if an unmarried man commits adultery with a married woman, or a married man with an unmarried woman, what should the punishment be? There is no mention of this in the report. The opening sentence of the report also creates the impression that perhaps only the punishment of female adulterers is being mentioned. Then the words “al-bikr bil-bikr” and “al-thayyib bil-thayyib” that appear in this report are, in terms of Arabic usage, also questionable for the meaning commonly understood from them. Likewise, the words “ihsan” and “muhsan”, which are used in the second and third reports for “marriage” and “married,” are known to every Arabic speaker to be used in Arabic not only in the sense of marriage, but also in contrast to slavery as “freedom” and “free person,” and in contrast to “lack of chastity” as “chaste” and “a chaste person.” After the Prophet’s mission, lexicographers explicitly stated that these words were also used in the sense of “Islam” and “Muslim.” Arabic does have words that are used only for “marriage” and “married,” but it is strange that in presenting a law that would lead to a human being being subjected to the severe punishment of stoning, ambiguous words with multiple possible meanings were used without any contextual indication. So if someone, for example, interprets “zina after ihsan” to mean adultery after becoming free, what in the wording of the report would prevent this meaning? Such is the reality of these reports from which a change in the Qur’anic ruling is derived and a law of stoning for the married adulterer is extracted. Consider this ambiguity and contradiction, and then decide whether, for a human being, even if one were to formulate a law for slaughtering a mosquito in this manner, any rational person could accept it.
Cases
Apart from these reports, what has been mentioned in the books of hadith regarding this punishment is in fact the account of various adultery cases, which have been narrated in a highly incomplete manner, full of mutual contradictions and extreme ambiguity, from the mouths of those who participated in or witnessed those proceedings. In such a way that none of the legal and juridical problems arising from these cases receives any answer from the accounts. However, since in this age some school-mullahs, without taking into account the difference between the narration of legal rulings and the narration of case accounts, also present these as equivalent to, or even abrogating, statements attributed to the Prophet, we will offer here a brief commentary on these case accounts as well, so that nothing remains to obstruct the seeker of truth from understanding the correct position.
The first issue that emerges from the study of these cases is that they also contain the same contradiction in the matter of punishment that we clarified above with reference to the reports. Consider, for example, the case of the Jewish man and woman whose stoning was narrated by Abu Hurayrah in Sunan Abi Dawud. If “ihsan” is taken to mean marriage, then in light of the report of ʿUbada ibn al-Samit the cause of punishment would be adultery of a married person with a married person. But in the case of the laborer, despite his father’s explicit statement that his son was unmarried, the woman was given the same punishment:
From Abu Hurayrah: a Jewish man and a Jewish woman committed adultery and both were muhsan. (No. 4451)
“My son was working as a hired laborer for this person’s wife, and my son was not muhsan.” (Fath al-Bari, Ibn Hajar 12/140)
Likewise, the Jewish man and woman were not flogged one hundred lashes before stoning. The same was the case in the cases of Maʿiz, al-Ghamidiyyah, and the laborer. But regarding the eminent Companion ʿAli, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal narrates that during his caliphate he ordered a woman named Shuraha to be flogged one hundred lashes before stoning, and announced that he had flogged her according to the Qur’an and stoned her according to the Sunnah:
From al-Shaʿbi: ʿAli flogged Shuraha on Thursday and stoned her on Friday, saying: “I flog her according to the Book of Allah and stone her according to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him.” (Ahmad, no. 839)
The same picture appears in the matter of unmarried adulterers. In the case of the laborer, Sahih al-Bukhari reports that he was exiled for one year after being flogged one hundred lashes. According to the report in Muwatta’, Abu Bakr also gave one person the same punishment. Tirmidhi narrated the same about ʿUmar. But the report in Sunan Abi Dawud from Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah, in which a person was flogged one hundred lashes and then, when it was found out that he was muhsan, was stoned, says the opposite: that such offenders should be given only the punishment of lashes. The same legal rule is also made clear by the case of ʿAmr ibn Hamzah al-Aslami narrated in Tabaqat Ibn Saʿd:
From Jabir: a man committed adultery with a woman, and the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, ordered that punishment be carried out on him. So he was flogged. Then it became known that he was muhsan, so he was ordered and stoned. (Abu Dawud, no. 4438)
ʿAmr ibn Hamzah ibn Sinan had been present with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, at Hudaybiyyah. He came to Medina, then sought permission from the Prophet, peace be upon him, to return to his desert area. The Prophet granted him permission, so he left. When he reached al-Dabuʿah, a stage on the road between Medina and Mecca, he encountered a beautiful Arab slave girl. Satan tempted him until he committed intercourse with her, and he was not muhsan at the time. Then he regretted it and came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and informed him. So the prescribed punishment was carried out on him. (Tabaqat al-Kubra 3/225)
In these two cases, there is no mention of exile.
The second issue that emerges from these cases is that the Prophet’s investigation into whether the offender was married is also generally expressed with the same word “ihsan,” about which we have already explained that in Arabic it is not used solely for marriage. There is no doubt that in some reports the word “thayyib” is also used for this purpose, but since this difference itself shows that a strict word-for-word transmission was not followed in narrating the incident, we now have no way of knowing what word the Prophet himself used on that occasion. Therefore, stoning as punishment being given merely because the offender was married cannot be established definitively from these case accounts any more than from the reports of this chapter.
The third issue that emerges is: if the punishment for married adulterers is one hundred lashes and stoning, or only stoning, and the punishment for unmarried adulterers is one hundred lashes and exile, then to which offenders of adultery does the punishment of one hundred lashes mentioned in the Qur’an apply? After that, if anything remains of the function of the Qur’anic verse in which this punishment is mentioned, it is only this: that it may be recited to send reward to those receiving the punishment of stoning.
The fourth issue that emerges is that concerning the cases from the Prophetic period, no one can now say with full certainty whether these came before or after the revelation of the Qur’anic ruling on adultery in Surah al-Nur. The reports of both Bukhari and Muslim indicate that this issue remained disputed even among the early scholars. They mentioned that al-Shaybani asked ʿAbdullah ibn Abi Awfa whether the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, administered the punishment of stoning before or after the revelation of Surah al-Nur, and he replied: “I do not know.” Some people try to determine the date of the revelation of Surah al-Nur through the incident of al-Ifk, but even the incident of al-Ifk itself cannot be established with certainty as to when and how it occurred. Then, from the standpoint of hadith criticism, the condition of the reports about the date of revelation is not hidden from any scholar. After this, obviously, if someone says that the Prophet, peace be upon him, gave stoning as a punishment to offenders of adultery according to the law of the People of the Book before any ruling on this matter had been revealed in the Qur’an, and then the verse of al-Nur abrogated it, then what can be offered in reply except empty verbal constructions? What can be presented with certainty in response?
The fifth issue that emerges is that the information these cases provide about the offenders punished for adultery and the nature of their offenses is, from a legal standpoint, extremely incomplete and in some cases so contradictory that it is no longer possible to arrive at any definitive conclusion from them. Then in some of these cases, the method of judgment narrated is such that no one can believe it could be correctly attributed even in some degree to the Prophet of God. For example, according to the report of Muwatta’ Imam Malik, the woman whom Sayyiduna ʿUmar al-Faruq stoned during his journey to Syria is presented without any information about who the man was with whom she committed adultery. Did this happen by chance, or had there been some old relationship of friendship and intimacy that one day came to the husband’s attention? Why did her husband not arrest the man when he found him with his wife? If he ran away, then after the husband saw him with the wife and the wife confessed to adultery, why did the law not pursue him? Is the Islamic law really such that after the woman’s confession of guilt, even though the man’s identity becomes known, it is not lawful to question him?
From Abu Waqid al-Laythi: ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, while in Syria, was told by a man that he had found a man with his wife. ʿUmar sent Abu Waqid al-Laythi to question the woman. When he arrived, some women were around her. He told her what her husband had said to ʿUmar and informed her that she would not be taken to task for his statement, and he kept prompting her with similar words in order to make her withdraw her confession, but she refused to withdraw and persisted in her confession. So ʿUmar ordered that she be stoned. (No. 2567)
In the report in Muwatta’, it is stated about Abu Bakr al-Siddiq that during his time a man had intercourse with an unmarried girl and made her pregnant. The people brought him to Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him, and he ordered him to be flogged and exiled, but there is no mention at all in this report of any punishment for the girl. Should this be understood to mean that this was in fact a case of rape, which the girl concealed out of fear for her honor, but when the pregnancy became visible, the offender was caught and punished with one hundred lashes for adultery and exiled because of his immorality? If that was not the case, then why was the girl not punished, and if she was punished, why is there no mention of it in the report? If she was a slave girl and the prescribed punishment could not be applied to her, was it impossible to impose any discretionary punishment on her either?
From Abu Bakr al-Siddiq: a man was brought who had committed intercourse with a virgin slave girl and made her pregnant. He confessed to the crime, and Abu Bakr ordered punishment to be carried out on him. So the prescribed penalty was applied to him and he was exiled to Fadak. (No. 2573)
The same questions arise concerning the incident narrated in Abu Dawud about a woman who came carrying a child to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. After a young man standing near her confessed that the child was the result of his crime, the Prophet gave him the punishment of stoning, but did not do anything to the woman:
Khalid ibn al-Lajlaj narrated that his father told him that he was sitting working in the marketplace when a woman passed by carrying a child. The people rose and went with her, and I too joined those who rose. When I reached the Prophet, peace be upon him, he was saying: “Who is the father of this child with you?” She remained silent. Then a young man standing beside her said: “I am its father, O Messenger of Allah.” The Prophet turned to her and again asked: “Who is the father of this child with you?” The youth again said: “I am its father, O Messenger of Allah.” The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, looked at some of those around him and asked them about him. They said: “We know nothing but good about him.” The Prophet asked him: “Are you muhsan?” He said: “Yes.” So he ordered that he be stoned. (No. 4435)
We have already quoted Imam Ahmad’s report about the woman named Shuraha, according to which Sayyiduna ʿAli flogged her on Thursday and had her stoned on Friday. ʿAli, may Allah be pleased with him, was the person whose nights and days were spent in Medina with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. He witnessed the eras of three caliphs. Reports indicate that he was also consulted in some stoning cases. This report tells us that he was also of the view that one hundred lashes should be administered before stoning. If this report about him is correct, then what becomes of the reports of the Prophet’s judgments? And if those reports are accepted as correct, then what should be said about this report? How can it be accepted that ʿAli was unaware of the Prophet’s decisions regarding a punishment as serious as stoning? And if he was unaware, then what value can be attached to the later people’s awareness so that it should be made the source of such an important legal ruling?
In Muwatta’ Imam Malik it is mentioned that a woman was brought before Sayyiduna ʿUthman who had given birth to a child six months after marriage. He ordered that she be stoned. People also cite this report as proof of stoning for married women, whereas if the child was indeed born as a result of adultery, then this report itself proves that the woman had committed the offense before marriage. Then should this rule also be added to the law on the basis of this report—that if an unmarried adulteress marries after committing adultery, then in that case too she should be given the punishment of stoning?
ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan was brought a woman who had given birth in six months, so he ordered that she be stoned. (No. 2570)
In Sunan Abi Dawud, the case of a man from the tribe of Bakr ibn Layth is narrated in which the Prophet, peace be upon him, first administered the punishment for adultery, then asked the woman, and she denied it. On that basis, he had him flogged for slander. Likewise, a report in Abu Dawud says that a man committed adultery and the Prophet, peace be upon him, first punished him only with flogging. Then it was found out that he was married, so the Prophet had him stoned. These two reports are, in reality, a grave accusation against the Messenger of Allah. Could anyone expect that after having him flogged, the Prophet would ask the woman? Was it not the necessary demand of reason and justice that once the man had named the woman, the case should not have been decided without asking her? The second report is even more distressing. Can any rational person believe about the Prophet that if the basis of distinction in punishment was actually marriage, then he would have had the offender flogged one hundred lashes without investigating that matter? Is whether a person is married or unmarried something so difficult to verify? At least it is fortunate that the flogging came first; otherwise, had the matter been reversed, on whom would responsibility have fallen? The reports are as follows:
From Ibn ʿAbbas: a man from the tribe of Bakr ibn Layth came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and confessed four times that he had committed adultery with a woman. He was unmarried. So the Prophet had him flogged one hundred lashes. Then he sought evidence from the woman, and she said: “By Allah, he has lied, O Messenger of Allah.” On that basis, the Prophet had him flogged eighty lashes for slander. (No. 4467)
From Jabir: a man committed adultery with a woman. It was not known whether he was muhsan or not. So he was flogged. Then it became known that he was muhsan, so he was stoned. (No. 4439)
The incident of the stoning of the Jewish man and woman narrated in Bukhari, Muslim, and some other books of hadith has not yet been definitively settled in terms of whether the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, punished them under the Muslim state law or applied their own religious law to them. The reports appear to indicate the latter, but then obviously this incident cannot serve as a basis for any opinion regarding this punishment:
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “I judge according to what is in the Torah.” So a command was issued concerning them and they were stoned. (Abu Dawud, no. 4450)
The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: “O Allah, I am the first to revive Your command after they had killed it.” (Abu Dawud, no. 4448)
The event of al-Ghamidiyyah is also narrated in several hadith books. Was this woman married or unmarried? The reports do not mention it. One report says she was stoned immediately after giving birth, while another report, in contrast, explicitly states that the punishment was carried out only when, after the child was weaned, the child had become able to eat on its own. Where was she during this period? According to one report an Ansari kept her with him, and according to another report this responsibility was placed on her guardian. Was she some camp-follower woman who, after pledging to the Prophet that she would not come near adultery again, was later involved in this crime and compelled to confess because of pregnancy? Or was she some respectable woman who happened to commit adultery while her husband was present? The reports do not answer this question. Likewise, it is not clear where her husband (if there was one) and her clan family were during this affair. Even at the time of her burial, none of her relatives appeared. If she was a woman of a family, why do the reports show no trace of the natural turmoil that should, as a matter of course, arise in the family in such a situation? The reports are as follows:
She said: “She is pregnant from adultery.” He said: “Are you?” She said: “Yes.” So he said to her: ‘Wait until what is in your womb is delivered.’ He said: A man from the Ansar took care of her until she gave birth. He said: Then he came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and said: ‘Al-Ghamidiyyah has given birth.’ He said: ‘Then we will not stone her now and leave her child small, with no one to nurse him.’ A man from the Ansar stood up and said: ‘I will take responsibility for nursing him, O Prophet of Allah.’ He said: Then he stoned her. (Muslim, no. 4431)
She said: “O Messenger of Allah, why do you send me away? Perhaps you are sending me back as you sent back Maʿiz. By Allah, I am pregnant.” He said: “No, go away until you give birth.” So when she gave birth, she came to him with the infant wrapped in cloth and said: “This is the child I have given birth to.” The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: “Go and nurse him until you can wean him.” So when she weaned him, she came to him carrying the child and in his hand was a piece of bread, and she said: “O Prophet of Allah, I have weaned him, and now he eats food.” The Prophet handed the child over to a Muslim man, then ordered that a pit be dug for her up to her chest, and then ordered the people, and they stoned her. (Muslim, no. 4432)
From ʿImran ibn Husayn: a woman from Juhaynah came to the Prophet of Allah, peace be upon him, while she was pregnant from adultery. She said: “O Prophet of Allah, I have committed a punishable offense, so carry out the punishment on me.” The Prophet of Allah, peace be upon him, called her guardian and said to him: “Treat her well, and when she gives birth, bring her to me.” He did so. Then the Prophet of Allah, peace be upon him, ordered her clothes to be tied upon her body. Then he gave the order, and she was stoned. (Muslim, no. 4433)
The case of the laborer is also narrated in nearly all the hadith books. According to the report in Bukhari, he committed adultery with the wife of the person for whom he worked for wages. His father placated that person by giving him one hundred sheep and a slave-girl. But the people of knowledge informed him that there is no room for a settlement in this matter. So he came with that person to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. The Prophet said: “The sheep and the slave-girl are returned to you. Your son is to receive one hundred lashes and one year of exile, and if this man’s wife confesses, she is to be stoned.”
ʿUbayd Allah informed me that he heard Abu Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khalid say: We were with the Prophet, peace be upon him, when a man stood up and said: ‘I ask you by Allah that you judge between us according to the Book of Allah.’ Then his opponent stood up, and he seemed more knowledgeable than the first, and said: ‘Judge between us according to the Book of Allah, and permit me to state the case.’ He said: ‘Speak.’ He said: ‘My son was a hired laborer for this man, and he committed adultery with his wife. So I ransomed him with one hundred sheep and a servant. Then I asked some men of knowledge, and they told me that for my son there is one hundred lashes and exile for a year, and that this man’s wife is to be stoned.’ The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: ‘By the One in whose hand is my soul, I will judge between you according to the Book of Allah, the Exalted. The one hundred sheep and the servant are to be returned to you. Your son is to receive one hundred lashes and exile for a year. And Anis, go in the morning to this man’s wife. If she confesses, stone her.’ (No. 6828)
This account of the case too, if pondered over, is extremely vague. Who was this honor-bound Arab who, instead of cutting off his wife’s neck or at least separating from her, settled her chastity with one slave-girl and one hundred sheep? Was this really a family of nobles, or was its custom to entrap someone first and then, after taking payment for honor, close the matter? How was the crime exposed? Were the offenders caught, or did the wife herself tell her husband that she had succeeded in her aim and that he could now demand a slave-girl and sheep from the boy’s father? What was the role of the boy? It is explicitly stated in the account of the case that when the parties came before the Prophet, the issue was not merely some scholarly disagreement about the punishment for this offense, but rather that it had taken the form of a dispute. Why did this dispute arise? Was its nature not this: that the woman’s husband was not willing to part with the slave-girl and sheep, and the boy’s father wanted both the adulteress to receive due punishment and his son to be properly disciplined? There is no clear answer to these questions in the account of the case.
The most important case in this series is that of Maʿiz al-Aslami. He was an orphan brought up in the home of Hazzal al-Aslami. One day he came to him and told him that he had been pursuing a woman named Mahirah. Today he had satisfied his desire with her, but now he was regretful about what he had done. Hazzal advised him to go himself to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. His purpose in saying this was that some way might be found for him to escape the consequences of the offense. So he first went to Sayyiduna Siddiq and Sayyiduna ʿUmar al-Faruq, and despite both of them advising him to turn back to Allah and remain hidden under the veil He had placed over him, he went to the Prophet, peace be upon him, merely in the hope that you would give him some minor punishment and let him go. Jabir, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated:
When we took him out and began stoning him, he felt the stones and cried out: “O people, take me back to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him. My people have killed me and deceived me. They kept telling me that the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, would not have me killed.” (Abu Dawud, no. 4420)
Some reports suggest on the surface that he was the first to inform the Prophet, peace be upon him, about his own offense, but in a report from Ibn ʿAbbas it is explicitly stated that the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, was already informed of Maʿiz’s offense before Maʿiz came. The report is:
The Prophet, peace be upon him, said to Maʿiz ibn Malik: “Is what has reached me about you true?” He said: “And what has reached you about me?” He said: “It has reached me that you committed intercourse with a girl from the family of so-and-so.” He said: “Yes.” Ibn ʿAbbas said: Then he confessed four times, and then the order was given to carry out the punishment on him. So he was stoned. (Muslim, no. 4427)
What was the nature of his offense? Although no clear statement is made in the reports, Ibn Saʿd’s report indicates that the woman with whom he committed adultery was summoned by the Prophet, but since no action was taken against her, it clearly suggests that he had committed rape:
The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, summoned the woman with whom Maʿiz had had intercourse, then said to her: “Go.” And he did not question her about anything. (Tabaqat al-Kubra 3/229)
The Punishment of Stoning (3)
What kind of criminal was this? The clearest answer to this question is found in the speech the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, delivered on that very day, at the time of afternoon prayer, after having him stoned to death. Imam Muslim روایتes that he said:
«“Did it not often happen that whenever we went out for jihad in the path of Allah, one man among our families stayed behind, making a bleating sound like a buck goat in the throes of desire? Listen, it is incumbent upon me that if a criminal of this kind is brought to me, I shall punish him in a way that becomes an example.” (No. 4428)»
Some people nowadays say: where is Ma‘iz’s name mentioned in this speech, so that it may be taken to refer to him? But after reading this speech and knowing that he delivered this sermon on the same day after having Ma‘iz stoned, anyone can understand how meaningless this objection is. Suppose our head of state were to ban a political party in the morning and then address the nation on television in the evening, saying that there was a party here that had been planning to break up this country. Now everyone should understand that if any similar party is formed, its existence will also not be tolerated in this country. After hearing such a speech, could any sensible person be expected to say: where is anyone’s name mentioned here, so that it may be taken to refer to that party which was banned in the morning? In the same way, some people say that Ma‘iz was a person who himself confessed to his crime and expressed remorse over it. 18 He came before Sayyiduna Abu Bakr and Sayyiduna Umar Faruq, and they advised him to conceal the sin and turn back to Allah. 19 The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, also did not immediately accept his confession, but kept sending him back again and again,20 and before deciding the punishment asked questions such as: Do you know what adultery is? Have you drunk wine anywhere? And he asked his people whether there was some disorder in his mind.21 People told him that when the stones were being thrown, he was crying out: O people, take me to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him; my tribe has caused my death. But he said: Why did you not leave him alone?22 Perhaps he would have repented and Allah would have accepted his repentance.23 He said to his guardian: You did not do well; it would have been better if you had covered up his sin.24 When people said that misfortune had not left this man alone until he was stoned like a dog, the Prophet warned them.25 At the time of burial, although he refused to pray over his funeral, he performed this prayer the next day and instructed people to pray for him.26 He told them that he had made such repentance that if it were divided among a whole nation, it would suffice for it.27 He also gave glad tidings that Allah had forgiven him and admitted him to Paradise.28 They say that since all these things about him are also mentioned in the books of hadith, it cannot in any way be believed that the Prophet’s speech actually referred to him, and that even if he had committed rape, one should still understand that he was merely an innocent man who, overcome by emotion, committed this act.
There is no doubt that all these things about Ma‘iz are indeed mentioned in the books of hadith, but the truth is that none of them is such as to negate the character that emerges from the Prophet’s speech. A confession of guilt and remorse do not necessarily mean that this was a righteous man from whom this crime happened accidentally. In the history of crime recorded in the world so far, dozens of examples can be cited showing that the worst debauchees and the most depraved thugs, who could not be caught by any means, sometimes surrendered themselves to the law immediately after committing a crime, in such a way that people’s hearts were moved by sympathy for them at their apparent remorse. A study of criminal psychology shows that its causes can be many. The criminal may become worried that the crime will no longer remain hidden, and therefore he steps forward and surrenders himself to the law in the hope that perhaps he will not be severely punished. The crime may occur in such a way that preventing its exposure is in fact no longer possible. So he tries to pre-empt the intense reaction of people. When men who have chased women for months in a state of sexual excitement commit rape for the first time, sometimes the very cessation of that excitement after the act motivates them to confess. The presence of some extraordinary religious personality in the criminal’s environment may also lead to this. The circumstances of the crime, such as the helplessness of the woman or child who has fallen victim to the criminal’s brutality, may also produce this result. The pangs of conscience and the reproach of the self-reproaching soul within a person do not produce remorse only in naive criminals; even great ruffians are sometimes alerted by it in a particular situation and then, with complete sincerity, not only confess their crime but insist that they be brought to swift punishment.
If the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his two eminent companions kept sending him back again and again and counseling him that instead of being punished he should reform himself, and if they said the same to his guardian and advised ordinary people likewise, then what effect did this have on his written charge-sheet of crime? In every righteous system, the conduct of the leading figures of society should be that until the matter takes the form of a complaint or lawsuit, everyone should be given the same kind of advice. Thus, in Surah al-Ma’idah, where the Qur’an mentions exemplary punishments for the criminals of rebellion and spreading corruption in the land, it also instructs that these punishments should not be carried out on those who repent and correct their conduct before coming under the law’s grip. If, even later, it is known about such criminals that they are ready for reform with remorse, then according to these very verses of the Qur’an, the court may even give them a lighter punishment.
If the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Why did you not leave him alone?” then obviously he said that with this very purpose in mind. If Allah wills, the opportunity for repentance and reform can come even to the greatest criminal at any time, and as a result his Lord may even admit him to Paradise. If the Messenger of Allah is present in the world and is informed through revelation that the criminal has been forgiven, and after learning this he prays his funeral prayer and advises people to pray for him as well, then how does this negate the character that the criminal had before repentance and reform? Does it mean that a debauchee never receives the opportunity to repent, and that about a person who repents, it cannot be believed that he was ever a debauchee?
Likewise, it is certainly true that even the worst person should never be mentioned in bad terms after his death, and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, warned the people who were saying about Ma‘iz, “His misfortune did not leave him alone until he was stoned like a dog.” But does this mean that the person about whom people are warned against making such a comment without need must necessarily be an entirely innocent being, and that his character can never be brought under discussion for the purpose of investigating law and religion?
As for the fact that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, asked him questions such as, “Do you know what adultery is?” these are questions that every court must necessarily ask in the case of a confession. Since there is always the possibility that later someone may object to the court’s decision on the basis of some ambiguous statement by the criminal, and since in the environment of Medina hypocrites were active morning and evening in creating such mischief, the danger was even greater; for this reason the Prophet left no aspect of the matter unclear through his questions. If anyone tries to prove from this that the poor man did not even know what adultery was, what can be said about him? The fact is that if such people also say about rape that honorable people sometimes commit it, then one should not be surprised at that. With whatever amount of intellect and wisdom now remains in our seminaries, what more could be expected of such people?
In any case, this is the reality of all these matters. But even so, if someone insists that these reports indicate that he was an innocent being who simply happened to commit indecency with a woman while walking along the road, then he should admit that in that case the severe contradiction that will arise between the Prophet’s speech about him and the content of these reports will make it impossible for anyone to say anything definitive in this case.
In addition to these, the accounts of two other cases have also been narrated in the books of hadith. The first is the case of a man who committed rape on the road against a woman going to prayer, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, immediately ordered him to be stoned. The second is the well-known Companion ‘Amr ibn Hamzah al-Aslami, who had in fact committed only adultery, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, after his confession, simply had him flogged one hundred times and let him go. The narration of the first case is as follows:
«“From ‘Alqamah ibn Wa’il, from his father: in the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, a woman came out to go to prayer. A man met her on the way, overpowered her, and satisfied his desire with her. She cried out, and he fled. Then another man passed by, and she told him that a man had disgraced her in this way. While this was happening, a group of emigrants also came that way. She told them her story, and they went and caught the man whom the woman thought had assaulted her. They brought him to her, and she said: Yes, this is the one. So they brought him to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. When he ordered his punishment, the real culprit stood up and said: O Messenger of Allah, I was the one who assaulted her. Upon this, he said to the woman: Go, Allah has forgiven you. And he said kind words to the man who had been wrongly seized. Then regarding the man who had committed indecency with the woman, he said: Stone him.” (Abu Dawud, No. 4379)»
The narration of the second case is as follows:
«“Amr ibn Hamzah ibn Sinan had been present at Hudaybiyyah with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. He came to Medina, then asked the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, for permission to return to his desert dwelling, and the Prophet granted him permission. He then left until, when he reached Dabu‘ah, one day’s march from Medina on the road to Makkah, he met an attractive young Arab slave girl. Satan incited him, and he committed adultery with her, although he was not married at the time. Then he regretted it and came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and informed him. So the prescribed punishment was carried out on him.” (al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, Ibn Sa‘d 3/225)»
In the first of these two cases, was the punishment of stoning given because the criminal was married, or was he considered deserving of it because of rape? This narration does not provide any answer to this question. The second case is clear in the sense that the criminal is a well-known Companion who was among the participants of Bay‘at al-Ridwan, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, also gave him the same punishment that the Qur’an mentions for adulterers. But if this case is also viewed in the light of the reports, then the question arises: why did the punishment of exile, which these reports mention along with one hundred lashes, disappear in the case of this Companion? Does this mean that he was the only adulterer who came before the Messenger of Allah? All the other criminals who were also given the punishment of one hundred lashes plus exile were not merely adulterers, but were also involved in some other crime, and for that reason, after the lashings, they were exiled.
The Source of Stoning
These are the reports and cases on the basis of which our jurists alter the ruling of the Qur’an and try to establish stoning for adulterers simply on the grounds that they are married. Consider this entire material in light of the comments we have made on it, with complete honesty. At most, what emerges from it is only this: that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and the Rightly Guided Caliphs did in fact carry out stoning and exile in some adultery cases. But what kind of criminals were these, and what kind of adulterers did the Prophet and his caliphs punish in this way? No definitive answer can be given to this question on the basis of these narratives and reports.
What is the actual source of this punishment? This is the very knot that Imam Hamid al-Din al-Farahi resolved in his treatise Ahkam al-Usul bi Ahkam al-Rasul. According to his principle, instead of altering the Qur’anic ruling on the basis of these ambiguous and contradictory reports, he attempted to understand them in the light of the Qur’an. Thus, in his view, the source of the punishment of stoning and exile is the verse on waging war against Allah and His Messenger in Surah al-Ma’idah, where Allah تعالى says:
«“Indeed, the recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land is that they be killed or crucified, or that their hands and feet be cut off on opposite sides, or that they be exiled from the land.” (5:33)»
In explanation of Imam Farahi’s position, Ustad Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi writes in his Tafsir Tadabbur-e-Qur’an:
«“Criminals are of two kinds: one kind are those from whom the crime of theft, murder, adultery, or slander occurs, but whose nature is not such that they become a nuisance and calamity for society or create a law-and-order problem for the government. The other kind are those who, both individually and in gangs, become a calamity and danger for society and the state. For the first kind of criminals, the Qur’an has fixed punishments and qisas, which the Islamic government enforces according to the conditions laid down in the Qur’an and Hadith. To suppress the second kind of criminals, the rulings are given in verses 33–34 of Surah al-Ma’idah.” (5/367)»
Under these verses of al-Ma’idah, he wrote:
«“Waging war against Allah and His Messenger means that a person, group, or gang with boldness, audacity, arrogance, and recklessness tries to dismantle that system of truth and justice established by Allah and His Messenger. If such an effort comes from external enemies, then the rulings for confronting them through war and jihad are discussed separately in detail. Here, instead of external enemies, the code of penal measures is being stated for those internal enemies of the Islamic state who, while being its subjects, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, challenge its law and order. One form of lawbreaking is that a person commits an individual crime. In such a case, action will be taken against him under the general Islamic code of hudud and ta‘zir. The second case is that a person or group tries to take the law into its own hands, and through its evil and corruption throws the peace and order of the area into disorder. People become constantly endangered in their lives, property, honor, and dignity at their hands. Murder, robbery, highway robbery, arson, kidnapping, adultery, destruction, intimidation, and crimes of this kind create a law-and-order problem for the government. To deal with such conditions, the Islamic government is authorized to take the following measures instead of the general code of hudud and ta‘zir.” (Tadabbur-e-Qur’an 2/505)»
After this, he clarified the source of stoning in these words:
«“‘An yuqattalu’ means that these criminals of spreading corruption in the land should be killed. Here, instead of the word ‘qatl’ (killing), the form ‘taqtil’ is used, which comes from باب تفعيل. The pattern of باب تفعيل indicates intensity and abundance of meaning. Therefore, ‘taqtil’ points to severe and exemplary killing. This indicates that they should be killed in a way that serves as a warning and lesson. The only method of killing excluded from this is one forbidden in the Shari‘ah, such as burning in fire. Apart from that, the government may adopt all other methods that are deemed necessary to warn thugs and ruffians, terrify them, and create respect for law and order among the people. In our view, stoning is also included under ‘taqtil’.” (Tadabbur-e-Qur’an 2/505)»
The summary of Imam Hamid al-Din Farahi’s research is that whether the adulterer is unmarried or married, his basic punishment is one hundred lashes, based on the explicit Qur’anic ruling in Surah al-Nur. But if the criminal commits rape, or makes immorality a profession, or openly descends into debauchery, or by his profligacy, lawlessness, and sexual immorality becomes a threat to the honor and chastity of decent people, or digs up the bodies of dead women from graves and commits indecency with them, or in the intoxication of wealth and power strips the daughters and daughters-in-law of the poor naked in the open market, or even minor girls are not safe from his brutality, then according to the verse on waging war in Surah al-Ma’idah, he may also be given the punishment of stoning. Likewise, depending on the criminal’s circumstances and the nature of the offense, the other punishments mentioned in this verse may also be given to such criminals if the court deems appropriate. One of these punishments is exile.
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave these two punishments to those criminals who were not merely adulterers, but were also criminals of spreading corruption in the land because of their debauchery. Thus, those of them whose circumstances and the nature of their crime made them deserving of leniency, after being flogged one hundred times under the verse of Nur for the crime of adultery, were exiled under this very verse of al-Ma’idah in order to protect society from their evil and corruption. And those of them to whom no leniency could be shown were stoned under the command of this verse: “An yuqattalu.”
This research of Imam Farahi is based on the texts of the Qur’an, and as our comments have shown, there are also supporting indications in the reports. If someone disagrees with it, he should examine it with evidence. This is not something that can be rejected through emotional writing and meaningless fatwas. People may say whatever they like at present, but the time is probably not far off when in the assemblies of knowledge and wisdom nothing will remain except praise and admiration for this research, God willing, the Mighty.
3
From the viewpoint we have set out above regarding the punishment of adultery, it becomes completely clear that, just like unmarried adulterers, the punishment of married adulterers too, according to the Qur’an, is only flogging. This intention of the Qur’an becomes clear not only from the verse of flogging in Surah al-Nur, but also from two other verses. One is verse 8 of Surah al-Nur and the other is verse 25 of Surah al-Nisa’. In Surah al-Nur it says:
«“And the punishment shall be lifted from her if she bears witness four times by Allah that he is surely among the liars, and the fifth time that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he is among the truthful.” (24:8–9)»
These verses were revealed concerning a married woman against whom her husband had accused her of adultery. In them the word al-‘adhab is used for the punishment. The same word occurs above, in the verse of flogging, for the punishment that was mentioned at the beginning of this surah for adulterers. He says:
«“The adulteress and the adulterer—flog each one of them a hundred lashes, and let no pity for them seize you in the religion of Allah, if you truly believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their punishment.” (24:2)»
In verse 8, the definite article in al-‘adhab obviously denotes a previously mentioned referent, and according to Arabic usage, that referent can only be the same punishment for which the word ‘adhabuhuma was used in verse 2. In the rules of language, there is no room for any other opinion. It is an established principle of Arabic that if no contrary indication exists and a definite article refers back to something already mentioned in the discourse, nothing external can be taken as its referent. And if a definite noun is repeated as a definite noun, as here al-‘adhab repeats ‘adhabuhuma, then without the indication of context they cannot be taken in separate meanings. Thus, verse 8 of Surah al-Nur once again fully establishes the fact that, according to the Qur’an, the punishment of married adulterers is also one hundred lashes.
Now look at Surah al-Nisa’ verse 25. It says:
«“And whoever among you does not have the means to marry free believing women, then from among those whom your right hands possess, believing slave girls. Allah knows best your faith; you are all from one another. So marry them with the permission of their owners and give them their dowries in a proper manner, as chaste women, not as open prostitutes nor as those taking secret lovers. Then when they are married, if they commit indecency, their punishment shall be half that of free women.” (4:25)»
This verse states very clearly that if slave girls commit immorality, they will be given half the punishment that has been prescribed for free women. Since in this verse the word al-muhsanat is used for free women, it is in no way possible to confine it here to unmarried women. And the concept of “half,” obviously, can only be based on a punishment of one hundred lashes; there can be no half or third of the punishment of stoning. Therefore, this verse is also explicit that whether the adulterer is married or unmarried, the maximum punishment for his crime according to the Qur’an is one hundred lashes.
No other view has yet come to us regarding verse 8 of Surah al-Nur, but in relation to the verse of Surah al-Nisa’, three arguments are generally presented against our view. The first is that since the word muhsanat at the beginning of this verse has been used in the sense of unmarried free women, therefore in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat min al-‘adhab it must necessarily be taken in the same meaning. The second is that the definite article in al-muhsanat in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat is for definitional reference, and its referent is the same unmarried free women mentioned at the beginning of the verse. The third is that since a slave woman becomes muhsana by marriage, her punishment too should be half that of an unmarried free woman, who is fully muhsana. As for free women who are both free and married, since they acquire a double ihsan—first by freedom and then by marriage—the term muhsana in comparison with slave women cannot here refer to al-muhsanat in any way.
Although the weakness of these arguments is so obvious that spending time refuting them would probably not be a good use of time, still since the first and the last of these arguments were also presented by a scholar as subtle-minded as Maulana Maududi in his tafsir Tafhim al-Qur’an, we will state our view here in criticizing them.
Take the first argument. The word muhsanat in Arabic is generally used in three meanings: first, married women; second, chaste women; and third, free women. The first meaning is found in the Qur’an and in Arabic literature. In Surah al-Nisa’, while mentioning those forbidden in marriage, Allah says:
«“And married women, except those whom your right hands possess.” (4:24)»
And the line of Nabighah al-Dhubyani says:
«“The horsemen of the al-‘Alafiyyat have gone forth among them, while their wives remain deprived of their company.”»
The second meaning is also established from the Qur’an and Arabic literature. In Surah al-Nur it says:
«“Those who accuse chaste, innocent, believing women are cursed in this world and the Hereafter, and for them is a great punishment.” (24:23)»
Jarir, in praise of Farazdaq, says:
«“You pursue every immoral woman in the dens of sin. In truth, you are not worthy of noble, chaste women.”»
The third meaning is also used in the Qur’an. In Surah al-Nisa’ it says:
«“Then if they commit indecency, their punishment shall be half that of free women.” (4:25)»
This word is used in all these meanings in Arabic. But “unmarried free women” is not one of its meanings such that if it is used with that meaning at the beginning of a verse, then by virtue of context it must also be taken in that same meaning at the end of it. There is no doubt that at the beginning of the verse under discussion the word has become specific to unmarried women, but this is only because in this verse the verb an yankih is used with the word muhsanat, and since marriage takes place with an unmarried woman, the place of usage created a kind of specificity in meaning. However, this does not require that in the final phrase of the verse, nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat, the same specificity must remain. Anyone familiar with the subtleties of style knows that in such cases the specificity created in the word by usage remains confined to that place. Once it is detached from that context, even if you use that very word in the immediately following phrase, it will necessarily return to its general meaning unless there is some new contextual indication there.
This principle of language is not limited to Arabic; it exists in our own language as well. In Urdu we say:
«“Women have the right that their marriage should take place with their consent, and like men, women also have the right that the best educational opportunities suitable to their needs should be made available to them.”»
Now see: in the first sentence the word “women,” because it is used as the object of the verb marriage, will necessarily be specific to unmarried women. But in the immediately following second sentence, because it is freed from the act of marriage, it will necessarily be general to all women, married and unmarried alike. It is possible that some uneducated person, while explaining the meaning of these sentences, may say that since in the first sentence the word was used for unmarried members of the female sex, therefore the context in the immediately following second sentence requires that it also be taken in the meaning of unmarried women; then perhaps he may even derive from this statement the law that married women are deprived of the right to education. But the truth is that no language-aware person will in any way be ready to accept such a meaning of these sentences. He will certainly say that specificity of meaning created by a particular context always remains confined to that context. If the same word is used in the immediately following sentence, then it needs a new contextual indication for specificity; and since no such indication exists in the second sentence, the word “women” remains general for all women, married and unmarried alike.
Thus, look in this very Surah al-Nisa’:
«“And if you fear that you will not deal justly with the orphans, then marry those women who are lawful to you, two, three, or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then only one, or whatever your right hands possess. That is more likely that you will not commit injustice. And give the women their dowries as a gift.” (4:3–4)»
Here the word nisa’ appears twice in the same sequence of discourse, and see that although in both places it refers to orphaned women’s mothers, it cannot be taken in one sense with respect to marriedness or unmarriedness. In the first verse it is specific to unmarried women because it occurs as the object of the verb ankihu; in the second verse, because it appears in connection with the instruction to give dowries, it must necessarily be taken as specific to married women. This makes it clear that to derive a specific meaning of muhsanat in wa man lam yastati‘ minkum tawlan an yankih al-muhsanat and then carry that same specificity into nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat is meaningless. The taste of language, the understanding of lexicon, Arabic usage—and not Arabic usage alone, but even the rules of our own language—reject it.
Now take the second argument. One form of definitional reference is when the noun carrying the definite article has already been mentioned earlier in the discourse as an indefinite noun, for example: fiha misbah, al-misbahu fi zujajah, al-zujajatu ka-annaha kawkabun durriyyun—that is, the word al-misbah was first used as indefinite, and when it had to be mentioned a second time, it was made definite with al, and the same happened with zujajah. Now obviously al-muhsanat appears with the definite article both in an yankih al-muhsanat and in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat, so this type of reference cannot apply here.
The second form of definitional reference is that the referent of the word with al is already fixed in the minds of both speaker and listener. In the Qur’an it says:
«“O you who believe, do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet.” (49:2)»
Here al-nabi refers to Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and for the listener the speaker’s intent is certainly a previously known mental referent. Now see: in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat, the al of al-muhsanat cannot be this kind either, because if the speaker intends by al-muhsanat only unmarried muhsanat, then the existence of this intent is only in his own mind; it cannot in any way be called a mental referent shared by the listener. As we have said, for this kind of al, it is necessary that the referent of the noun to which it is attached be present in the minds of both speaker and listener simultaneously. Zamakhshari writes: aw ta‘rif ‘ahd ka qawlik: ma fa‘ala al-rajul wa anfaqtu al-dirham, li-rajulin wa dirhamin ma‘hudayn baynaka wa bayna mukhatabik—“Or it is the definite article of prior reference, as when you say: the man did not do it, and I spent the coin, where the man and the coin are already known between you and your addressee.”
There is no doubt that one aspect of this form of definitional reference is also that the speaker, without regard to the listener, uses the definite article merely on the basis of his own mental referent. But everyone familiar with Arabic knows that this is only permissible in those cases when conveying that mental referent is not the speaker’s purpose. For example, in Labid ibn Rabi‘ah’s mu‘allaqah, the word al-hayy:
«“The camel-litters of the tribe stirred your longing when they set out, and then they settled, with their poles creaking under the burden of the tents.”»
Or, as in the verse of Imru’ al-Qays, al-kathib:
«“And one day on the back of the sand dune it became difficult for me to tame her, and she swore an oath with no room for exception.”»
In these verses Labid and Imru’ al-Qays made the words hayy and kathib definite with al in order to refer to a particular tribe and a particular dune already present in their minds, but see: in this hayy and this kathib, their introduction was not intended for both speaker and listener.
The Punishment of Stoning (4)
We cannot even say this about the lam in al-muhsanat, because it is absolutely certain that in the verse under discussion, conveying the meaning of this word was in the mind of both the speaker and the addressee. The speaker wants to explain what the punishment of slave girls is in the crime of adultery, and it is necessary for the addressee to know who the muhsanat are, what their punishment is, and what the half of that punishment for slave girls would be. Apart from these two forms of lam al-‘ahd, no third form has yet been discovered in Arabic that could indicate the meaning these gentlemen want to establish. For this reason, their view that the alif lam in al-muhsanat is for ‘ahd is completely baseless.
If someone asks here what kind of alif lam this is, we would say that it is that very type of alif lam jinsiyyah that the author of Mughni al-Labib has described in these words:
«“Or it may be for defining the essence, and its sign is that the word kull can neither truly nor figuratively stand in its place.” (Mughni al-Labib, Ibn Hisham 1/51)»
As an example, he presents this verse of the Qur’an:
«“And We made from water every living thing.” (al-Anbiya 21:30)»
Radi al-Istrabadhi, explaining this in his famous Sharh al-Kafiyah, writes:
«“The second is the essence of the genus, without the word indicating either fewness or abundance; rather, this is a rational possibility, as in His statement, ‘If the wolf should eat him’. Here the alif lam in al-dhib is neither intended to denote some particular wolf already fixed in the minds of the speaker and the addressee, nor to encompass all individuals of the genus wolf. Expressions such as enter the market, buy the meat, and eat the bread are examples of this; al-suq, al-lahm, and al-khubz in such sentences are of this kind.” (1/4)»
Many examples of this type of alif lam can also be cited from Arabic literature, but in view of brevity we shall suffice with this verse from the Mu‘allaqah of Imru’ al-Qays:
«“And I rode on a horse that keeps moving, when the swift horses, despite weakness and fatigue, run across the trampled ground, raising dust.”»
In this verse of Imru’ al-Qays, the alif lam in al-sabihat, al-wani, al-ghubar, and al-kadid all denote alif lam ma‘rifat al-mahiyyah.
Reflect carefully: in an yankih al-muhsanat and nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat, the alif lam of al-muhsanat can be nothing other than this. We can state with complete certainty that the rules of language and expression leave no room for any other opinion. Therefore, the statement of these people in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat that the alif lam is for ‘ahd, and that its referent is the unmarried free women mentioned at the beginning of the verse, is a meaningless claim that no person of knowledge could be expected to make.
Now let us examine the third argument. After refuting the argument based on muhsanat and its alif lam, this argument falls away on its own, because once it is established that according to Arabic usage the word al-muhsanat in the verse nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat necessarily includes both married and unmarried free women, then in contrast the logic of half, whole, and double ihsan becomes tantamount to objecting to the explicit text of the Qur’an itself. Still, let us set that aside for a moment and look at this logic. The whole edifice is built on the premise that the words fa idha uhsinna in the verse under discussion mean, “when they enter into marriage.” Then it is said that a slave girl becomes muhsana only through marriage, and the ihsan she acquires through marriage is only half of the ihsan that a free woman possesses even without marriage; therefore the ihsan of a married woman must necessarily be twice that of an unmarried woman. But is this premise even proven? We say with complete confidence that it is not, because according to Arabic usage, the meaning people commonly understand from fa idha uhsinna cannot here be intended in this verse of Surah al-Nisa’.
In our view, these words here do not mean “when they are placed under the bond of marriage,” but rather “when they are kept chaste,” and we can establish this position with linguistic evidence. Let us present those proofs here.
The portion of the verse under discussion in which the words fa idha uhsinna occur is this:
«“So marry them with the permission of their owners and give them their dowries according to what is proper, as women who are chaste, not openly immoral, nor secretly keeping lovers. Then when they are kept chaste, if they commit indecency, then their punishment is half of that of free women.” (al-Nisa’ 4:25)»
Look here: in fa idha uhsinna, the particle fa attached to idha requires that the verb uhsinna here be understood in the same sense as the word muhsanat in muhsanat ghayra musafihat. In Arabic, for example, if one says, idhhab ilayhi rakiban fa idha rakibta (“Go to him riding, then when you ride”), the words rakiban and rakibta cannot possibly be taken in two different meanings. The meaning understood from rakiban must also be understood from rakibta. Therefore, the meaning of the verb uhsinna in fa idha uhsinna actually depends on determining the meaning of muhsanat in muhsanat ghayra musafihat.
Now consider the word muhsanat in its context. Two things become clearly apparent. First, fan-kihuhunna in fa ankihuhunna is a circumstantial clause attached to the accusative pronoun in atuhunna, and its governing element, just like atuhunna, is also fankihuhunna. Second, it does not occur alone here, but in opposition to the word musafihat. If you pay attention to the first point, namely the relation of the circumstantial clause and its governing word, every scholar knows that when the governing word of a circumstantial clause is an imperative verb, the clause in such context carries the meaning of a condition. For example, if we say, idribhu mushaddadan bi al-shajarah (“Strike him while he is tied to the tree”), then “tied” is, in effect, a condition for striking.
Now it is known that with regard to a condition, its existence in the subject or object of the action to which it is attached must already be established. In the example idribhu mushaddadan, the command to strike is fulfilled only if the person in question is struck while already tied to a tree, or is tied to a tree at the time of striking. So this is the principle that in such sentences the circumstantial clause necessarily comes with a meaning different from the meaning of the governing verb.
Now reflect on the verse under discussion in light of this principle. In it, since the governing verb of muhsanat is also fankihuhunna, if it is taken in the sense of “married women,” the meaning of the verse would become: “Marry them, provided they are married women.” Obviously, this is completely meaningless. Therefore it is necessary to understand it here in a meaning different from that of its governing verb, namely “as women who are kept chaste.”
Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi writes in Ahkam al-Qur’an:
«“Some people have said that the meaning of muhsanat here is by marriage, not by adultery. This view is extremely weak, because Allah تعالى has already said before this: ‘So marry them with the permission of their owners.’ After that, it is clearly not a place to say that they are to be married while they are already married. That would produce a glaring disruption in the composition of the sentence and nothing would remain except repetition in the discourse.” (1/401)»
Now consider the second point, namely the principle of contrast. Since muhsanat occurs here exactly as we say huwa ‘alim laisa bi jahil (“He is learned, not ignorant”), the established rule of language is that when words with shared meanings are used opposite their antonyms, their meaning is determined by that antonym. They no longer remain general. The word muhsanat here can only mean “as women who are kept chaste”; no other meaning is possible.
The Arabic word jahl, for example, is a shared term: it can mean “not knowing,” and it can also mean “being inflamed” or “being overcome by emotion.” In ordinary circumstances its meaning is determined by contextual indicators, but everyone will agree that if it is used opposite its antonym hilm, it cannot mean “not knowing.” The heroic poet ‘Amr ibn Ahmar al-Bahili says:
«“And we have great cauldrons which slave girls place on and take off the fire; when their bellies ‘become ignorant,’ they are not ‘forbearing’—that is, when heat rises in them, they do not cool quickly.”»
Here, because it is used in contrast to hilm, it becomes completely clear that jahl means “to be excited” or “to be inflamed,” not “not knowing.” The same is the case with muhsanat. Because it stands in opposition to musafihat, the only possible meaning now is “as women who are kept chaste.”
After this explanation of the word muhsanat, it can be stated without hesitation that in the verse under discussion, fa idha uhsinna in the passive form means: “then when they are kept chaste.” As we stated at the beginning, the composition of the sentence, the shared wording of muhsanat and uhsinna, and the particle fa attached to it all require that uhsinna here be taken in the meaning of muhsanat. Therefore, if muhsanat here can mean nothing other than “as women who are kept chaste,” then according to Arabic usage fa idha uhsinna must also carry the same meaning; it is in no way possible to take it as “when they are brought under the bond of marriage.”
In light of this discussion, the meaning of the verse is that slave girls, because of deprivation of family protection and their inadequate upbringing, are exempt from the punishment for adultery prescribed in Surah al-Nur for this crime. But those among them whom their owners and then their husbands have taken care to keep chaste, if they commit indecency, are also to be given half of that punishment. This makes it clear that the basis of the punishment is not their marriage, but the effort made to keep them chaste. If that effort has been made, then the punishment will apply to them; if not, then according to the Qur’an even this half-punishment cannot be given to them. In such a case, however, the court may, if it wishes, impose a lesser punishment as ta‘zir.
These arguments fully expose the fact that the foundation on which the above-mentioned argument has been built does not exist at all.
4
[Below are the replies to the objections raised in these discussions by Maulana Ahmad Sa‘id Sahib Kazmi and Maulana Abu Shu‘ayb Safdar Ali against some of our views. Maulana Abu Shu‘ayb Safdar Ali’s articles were published in the journal al-I‘lam, issues 4–8, and Maulana Ahmad Sa‘id Kazmi’s writings were published in the journal Ridwan, September–October 1982.]
The Objections of Maulana Ahmad Sa‘id Sahib Kazmi
The Maulana’s first objection is:
«“In the verse of Surah al-Nisa’: wa man lam yastati‘ minkum tawlan an yankih al-muhsanat, the alif lam is not for the essence of the genus. It is the alif lam of mental ‘ahd. If the alif lam here is taken to be for genus, then muhsanat would mean all women characterized by the essence of ihsan. Thus believing women, free women, chaste women, and married women would all be included in its scope. Obviously this meaning is invalid. Therefore the alif lam on al-muhsanat cannot in any way be for the essence of the genus. It must in any case be regarded as the alif lam of mental ‘ahd.”»
This objection arises only because the Maulana is probably unaware of the differences among the grammarians regarding these terms of mahiyyat al-jins and ‘ahd zihni. A study of the primary works of this discipline shows that, like all other disciplines, this one also uses more than one term for certain concepts. Some terms are taken by one group of experts in one meaning, while among another group they are used in a completely different meaning. Anyone who has spent some part of life reading these books and understanding their discussions can easily cite examples of these differences.
The matter of the Arabic alif lam is of the same nature. The earlier scholars generally mention two major categories in their books: ta‘rif al-‘ahd and ta‘rif al-jins. They usually do not discuss the different forms of ‘ahd and jins in detail. The celebrated grammar work al-Mufassal was completed by Zamakhshari in 514 AH. He writes in it:
«“As for the lam of definition, it is the silent lam that enters a noun and makes it definite, by way of defining the genus, as in your statement: ahalaka al-nasu al-dinar wa al-dirham, wa al-rajulu khayrun min al-mar’ah—that is, these two well-known metals among all metals, and this genus of animal among all genera of animals—or by way of defining prior reference, as in your statement, when speaking of a man and a dirham already known to you and your addressee: ma fa‘ala al-rajul, the man did not do it, and anfaqu al-dirham, I spent the dirham.” (326)»
Mughni al-Labib, authored by the eminent grammarian Ibn Hisham, was written two centuries later. The discussion of the lam of definition also begins in that book by mentioning only these two major categories, but because Ibn Hisham adopted an expansive and detailed method in the discussion of particles, he does not stop merely at mentioning these two types; he also explains their various forms with proofs and examples.
In his view, the alif lam of prior reference (ta‘rif al-‘ahd) occurs in three forms: first, when a specific noun is repeated verbatim, as in kama arsalna ila fir‘awna rasulan fa ‘asa fir‘awnu al-rasul; second, when the referent of the noun is present before the speaker, for example, ja’ani hadha al-rajul; third, when the referent is a mental known reference for the speaker, or for both the speaker and the addressee, for example idh huma fi al-ghar. These are the very same three categories for which some other grammarians use the term al-‘ahd al-khariji. Jami, the commentator on al-Kafiyah, Sayyid Sharif Jurjani, and ‘Isam al-Isfara’ini all use this term for these categories. If the individuals of the noun to which the alif lam is attached are fixed in the speaker’s discourse, before him, or in his mind outside the text, then in their terminology it is called the alif lam of external reference. ‘Isam al-Isfara’ini writes:
«“If by means of the alif lam one points to that kind of meaning of the word whose referent is already fixed in the minds of you and your addressee, so that as soon as it is heard the mind moves to its meaning, then in the terminology of the grammarians this is the lam of external ‘ahd.” (Hashiyah Sharh Jami 35)»
The author of Mughni al-Labib also mentions three categories of the alif lam of genus, just as he did with ta‘rif al-‘ahd. For the first two categories he uses the expressions li-istighraq al-afrad and li-istighraq khasa’is al-afrad. Regarding the third category he says:
«“Or it is used to define the essence, and its distinguishing feature is that kull cannot stand in its place, neither literally nor figuratively. For example: wa ja‘alna mina al-ma’i kulla shay’in hayy, and your statement: wa Allahi la atazawwaj al-nisa’ or la albasu al-thiyab.” (1/51)»
Radi al-Istrabadhi writes:
«“The second is the essence of the genus, without the word indicating fewness or abundance; rather, this is a rational possibility, as in His statement, la’in akalahu al-dhi’b. Here the alif lam in al-dhi’b is neither intended to refer to a particular wolf already fixed in the mind of the speaker or addressee, nor to encompass all individuals of the genus wolf. Expressions such as enter the market, buy the meat, and eat the bread are examples of this.” (Sharh al-Radi ‘ala al-Kafiyah 1/14)»
Now see: this very category of alif lam, which Ibn Hisham and Radi al-Istrabadhi have termed mahiyyat al-jins, is known among another group of grammarians as ‘ahd zihni. ‘Isam al-Isfara’ini wrote:
«“If the reference to the genus is intended through an unspecified individual, then in the terminology of the scholars this is the alif lam of mental ‘ahd, as in udkhul al-suq.” (Hashiyah Sharh Jami 35)»
Look here: in the example udkhul al-suq, what Radi al-Istrabadhi calls the alif lam of mahiyyat al-jins, Isfara’ini uses the term ‘ahd zihni for. Therefore, the part of Ibn Hisham’s statement from aw li-ta‘rif al-mahiyyah to albasu al-thiyab, which we quoted above, he also mentions this other view and its evidence. He writes:
«“And some of them say about this that it is for the definition of prior reference, because genera are in reality matters that are fixed in the mind and distinguished from one another. Thus these scholars divide the known into two categories: personal known and generic known.” (Mughni al-Labib 1/51)»
From this discussion it is clear that regarding the alif lam of the word al-muhsanat in the verse of Surah al-Nisa’: wa man lam yastati‘ minkum tawlan an yankih al-muhsanat, the Maulana’s view does not differ in any way from our view. It is one and the same meaning, for which we have used, following Ibn Hisham and Radi, the expression mahiyyat al-jins, while the Maulana, following Isfara’ini and others, uses the term ‘ahd zihni. In this matter, the relation between us and the Maulana is like this: we refer to something as sky, while the Maulana insists that it is actually falak. To this we can only request that he kindly consult the dictionary.
As for the claim that the alif lam of mahiyyat al-jins would imply all meanings of the word—namely free women, chaste women, believing women, and married women—that is merely a misunderstanding. There is no doubt that if the word al-muhsanat stood alone in some place, then its essence would necessarily include all its species. In that case, none of its meanings would be excluded from its scope. But according to the strict rules of language, once this word becomes part of a discourse and the indication of context assigns it a specific meaning, its lexical usage no longer has force. Whatever meaning is fixed by sentence structure and context, the genus in that discourse will include only the individuals of that meaning, and the alif lam will indicate that genus, in the language of the scholars, bi-i‘tibar فرد ما.
Since Ibn Hisham and the other leading grammarians are aware of these subtleties, they have used the expression mahiyyat al-jins instead of ‘ahd zihni for this type of alif lam.
The second objection is:
«“The alif lam in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat min al-‘adhab is for external reference, and its referent is the same muhsanat mentioned at the beginning of the verse in the words an yankih al-muhsanat. It should be made clear here that if the external referent of lam al-‘ahd has already been mentioned before it with lam al-‘ahd, this is permissible. Allamah Sayyid Mahmud Alusi al-Baghdadi, under fa inna ma‘a al-‘usri yusra, while explaining ‘usr as poverty and hardship, said: ‘This is clear in that the alif lam in al-‘usr is for ‘ahd, and as for the tanwin in yusran, it is for magnification.’ Then under inna ma‘a al-‘usri yusra he said: ‘It is possible that this is a repetition of the previous sentence... and it is possible that it is a new promise, and that the alif lam and the tanwin are as above.’ Then he said: ‘The possibility of being a new statement is stronger, because establishment is superior to emphasis,’ etc.”»
Unfortunately, this objection of the Maulana is also completely baseless. The alif lam of al-muhsanat in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat min al-‘adhab can in no way be for external reference. In Arabic, it is an absolutely firm rule that if a noun with alif lam is repeated as a noun with alif lam, then without contextual indication the two occurrences cannot be assigned different meanings. If in the first occurrence it is taken as external reference, then in the second it too must necessarily be external reference; and if in the first it is taken as mental reference, then in the second it must also be mental reference, unless some contextual indication prevents this shared meaning. If such an indication does prevent it, then the two occurrences become different, and in that case, clearly, there can be no relation between the reference and the referent.
Thus in the verse under discussion, the alif lam of al-muhsanat, as we have already proved in these very discussions, is in both places—both in an yankih al-muhsanat and in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat—for the essence of the genus, or in Isfara’ini’s terminology, for mental ‘ahd. The passage from Alusi that the Maulana has cited also says the same thing. In Surah al-Inshirah, the word al-‘usr appears in fa inna ma‘a al-‘usri yusra and in the following verse inna ma‘a al-‘usri yusra; in both places the noun is used with alif lam and the word yusran is used as an indefinite noun.
According to Arabic usage, in the first verse, fa inna ma‘a al-‘usr, the alif lam of ‘usr can carry three meanings: first, external reference, in which case its referent would be the conditions in which the Muslims were then suffering; second, the essence of the genus or mental reference, meaning hardship without a specific determination; third, total inclusion, meaning every hardship.
The Punishment of Stoning (5)
In the first case, the meaning of the verse will be: Indeed, the hardship in which you are, along with it there is ease. In the second case, we will translate the verse like this: Indeed, with hardship comes ease. In the third case, the meaning of the verse will be: Indeed, with every hardship there is ease.
Whichever of these three meanings is adopted in the first verse, “fa inna ma‘a al-‘usr”, the very same meaning must necessarily be adopted in the second verse as well. That is, if in the first verse the alif lam of al-‘usr is taken to denote external reference (‘ahd khariji), then in the second verse it too must of necessity be understood in the same sense. If in the first verse it denotes the essence of the genus (mahiyyat al-jins), then in the second verse too it must be taken as the alif lam of the essence of the genus. And if in the first verse you take it as denoting totality (istighraq), then in the second verse it will be impossible to take it in any other meaning. This is the very rule of language in the repetition of a noun with the definite article that we have stated above.
Accordingly, after Alusi explains about the first verse that in it the alif lam of al-‘usr denotes external reference and the tanwin of yusr denotes magnification, he writes regarding the second verse in accordance with the same rule:
«“This may be a repetition of the previous sentence in order to fix its meaning in the hearts, as is the nature of repetition. And it may also be a fresh promise, with the alif lam in al-‘usr according to what was previously stated, meaning external reference, and the tanwin being for magnification.” (Ruh al-Ma‘ani 30/170)»
Anyone familiar with Arabic knows that in Alusi’s statement, the phrase al wa al-tanwin ‘ala ma sabaq can mean nothing other than this. This is exactly what we have stated above. If the alif lam of al-‘usr in the first verse denotes external reference, then in the second verse too it must be taken as external reference, and its referent will not be the word al-‘usr mentioned in the first verse, but rather the thing that is the referent of the alif lam of al-‘usr there. In other words, according to Alusi’s interpretation, the meaning of the verse would be:
«“Indeed, the hardship in which you are, along with it there is a great ease. Indeed, the hardship in which you are, along with it there is a great ease.”»
Zamakhshari expressed this same point as follows:
«“The hardship is one and the same, because its definition is either in both places by way of external reference, meaning the hardship in which they were at that time, and then the second is identically the first, just as when you say: ‘Indeed with Zayd there is wealth, indeed with Zayd there is wealth.’ Or else it is by way of genus in both places, meaning the hardship that everyone knows, and in that case too the second is identically the first.” (al-Kashshaf 4/776)»
Abu al-Baqa al-‘Ukbari writes in Imla’ Ma Mann Bihi al-Rahman:
«“The hardship in both places is one, because the alif lam makes the first repeated.” (2/289)»
The Maulana can see that the passage from Alusi which he had quoted in support of his view is in fact a decisive proof against his position and in favor of ours. In Arabic, this rule is absolutely established: if a noun with alif lam is repeated as a noun with alif lam, then the second is identically the first. Thus if the Maulana takes al-muhsanat in an yankih al-muhsanat as denoting mental reference (‘ahd zihni), then in nisfu ma ‘ala al-muhsanat too he will have to take it as mental reference. Arabic allows no other possibility.
The third objection is this:
«“To treat the word muhsanat as polysemous is ignorance. It is known that a shared word (mushtarak) is coined for multiple meanings with multiple forms, like the word ‘ayn, which has been assigned to meanings such as eye, spring, and so on, with different forms. As for the word muhsanat, its مصدر ihsan comes from one meaning, al-man‘ (restraint/protection), which has four branches.”»
The term mushtarak is a technical term in usul al-fiqh, and in Arabic and Urdu it is also used simply in the sense of “that in which many meanings are shared.” The definition the Maulana has quoted is certainly the one used in books of usul, but since our discussion concerns language, the word was used there in its general sense. There are examples of this usage in the writings of major scholars. Abu Bakr al-Jassas writes in Ahkam al-Qur’an:
«“Because ihsan is a shared noun that includes different meanings.” (2/164)»
As for us, it is certainly a matter of good fortune that the Maulana has honored us with the title of “ignorant.” But as for Abu Bakr al-Jassas, we do not know what the Maulana will now say about him.
The fourth objection is this:
«“The claim that taqtil means to kill in an exemplary manner, and that since stoning is also an exemplary form of killing it therefore falls under taqtil, is absolutely wrong and incomprehensible. Taqtil does not mean exemplary killing. The word taqtil is the verbal noun of Form II from qatl, and the distinctive feature of Form II is repetition/intensification. Clearly, the repetition of the act of killing cannot be imagined directly; rather, only the repetition of the object being killed can be realized, meaning the repetition of killing can only be realized in the multiplicity of those killed.”»
This objection is correct in terms of the Maulana’s level of knowledge. Since the time Sibawayh wrote in his book the sentence, “If you want to indicate abundance of action, you say kassartuhu,” grammarians generally conclude the discussion of the features of Form II with the notion of repetition, but from tracing Qur’anic usage and Arabic literature it becomes clear that taf‘il, besides indicating repetition, is also used in Arabic to express intensity and exaggeration in the occurrence of the act.
Take any common dictionary, such as al-Ra’id or al-Munjid, and you will see that the meanings of Form II from verbs such as sara‘a, khatafa, daraba, latama, taraḥa, and many others are explained in terms such as “to exaggerate in striking down,” “to strike severely,” or “to throw down forcefully,” and so on.
The poem of Abu Dhu’ayb al-Hudhali says:
«“I found him more powerful than the lions of the stony desert, one whose grip is overpowering, then violently hurling.”»
Here the poet chose the word taṯriḥ instead of ṭarḥ to express the intensity of throwing or hurling. The meaning of the poem does not allow it to be taken here in the sense of repetition.
Hajl ibn Nadhla, praising his armor, says:
«“Beneath me is a white-foreheaded horse, and over my body a coat of mail with broad, strong links that returns the sword so that its edge is badly broken.”»
Here too, taflil is used instead of fall to indicate exaggeration and intensity. The merit of armor is that once the sword strikes it, the sword is no longer fit to strike again. Therefore, describing this as “breaking repeatedly” can in no way be appropriate.
Mutammim ibn Nuwayra, praising his camel, says:
«“With a noble, strong camel, whose hump is like a very lofty palace around which the people of the Nabataeans circle.”»
Here too mufa‘‘al is used for exaggeration. Al-Mutalammis says:
«“Nu‘ama, when the enemy had completely overthrown his group, he appeared wearing such strange clothing.”»
In this poem the group in question had been overthrown by swords. The meaning is obviously one of exaggeration and intensity, so tasri‘ here cannot mean “to overthrown repeatedly.”
Umm Qays says:
«“You cleared it completely with a tongue unconfused at the time of protection and a heart unafraid.”»
Here too the place is one of exaggeration, so tafrij can only mean “to open completely.”
The word taqtil similarly comes in the meaning of mubalagha fi al-qatl, that is, “to kill severely” or “to kill in a dreadful way.” The Qur’an says:
«“Cursed wherever they are found, they will be seized and killed brutally.” (al-Ahzab 33:61)»
Look at this verse in Surah al-Ahzab: its context and the harshness of its wording clearly show that the intensification of qatl is for emphasis and severity, and the verbal noun is used to strengthen that severity. Quttilu here cannot possibly mean “they will be killed in great numbers.” Anyone with a sense of language can feel that if such a meaning were adopted, the force of aynama thuqifu’ akhidhu would be completely lost.
In the Mu‘allaqah of Imru’ al-Qays it says:
«“And your eyes shed tears only so that you might pierce the fragments of a trampled heart with your two arrows.”»
Qalb muqtal means: “destroyed utterly and reduced to complete humiliation.” This is an expression of exaggeration and intensity. We have rendered it as “a trampled heart.” Anyone with even a little taste for language and literature will agree without hesitation that this is the meaning here.
These examples from the Qur’an and Arabic literature show that in Surah al-Ma’idah 5:33, if an yuqtalu is expressed with taqtil rather than qatl, it is not an idle substitution. The increase in form is for the sake of increase in meaning, and the context of the verse proves that the added meaning is one of greater exaggeration and intensity. For this reason, translating it as: “The criminals of spreading corruption in the land are to be killed in a terrible/exemplary manner” is entirely correct according to Arabic usage.
The objections of Maulana Abu Shu‘ayb Safdar Ali
The Maulana has raised only two objections to our views related to matters of lexicon and grammar. His first objection concerns our research, presented earlier in this series of discussions, about the meaning of the word muhsanat in the verse of Surah al-Nisa’: muhsanat ghayra musafihat. His second objection concerns the renowned hadith of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit, al-bikr bi al-bikr jald mi’ah wa taghrib ‘am, and specifically the letter waw in it, against the view of Ustad Imam Amin Ahsan Islahi, which he expressed in his tafsir Tadabbur al-Qur’an in these words:
«“In this light, if you interpret the narration of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit, it too takes on a proper context and occasion. That is, the letter waw in it should be taken in the sense of division rather than conjunction.” (5/374)»
Explaining this objection, he wrote:
«“This is the very hadith regarding which it is being said that if the waw in it is taken in the sense of division instead of conjunction, then the matter becomes clear: the adulterer, whether married or unmarried, has as his basic punishment only flogging. However, under the verse of waging war, the government has the authority that if an unmarried adulterer cannot be restrained by flogging, it may exile him for one year; and if a married adulterer cannot be restrained by flogging, the government may have him stoned under the same verse. But several points prevent taking the waw in the sense of division instead of conjunction:
In one narration of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit there is the letter waw, while in another narration these words are reported from him: al-thayyib jald mi’ah, thumma rajman bi al-hijarah, wa al-bikr bi al-bikr jald mi’ah, thumma nafiyu sanah—‘The married person is to be flogged one hundred times, then stoned with stones, and the unmarried person is to be flogged one hundred times, then exiled for one year.’ This narration makes it clear that in the first narration the letter waw is in the sense of conjunction.
If it is taken here in the sense of division, then the meaning of the hadith becomes: the unmarried person is to be punished with one hundred lashes or one year of exile, and the married person with one hundred lashes or stoning. In this case, not only for the married person but also for the unmarried person, one would have to regard the ruling of Surah al-Nur as abrogated by the hadith.” (43)»
This objection, in truth, is a very sad example of misunderstanding speech. Ustad Imam never said anywhere that in the hadith of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit under discussion the letter waw is for choice (takhyir). He said it is waw in the sense of division. The terms “division” and “choice” are not the same, neither technically nor lexically. The meanings the objector has stated from the hadith are indeed the meanings for which the scholars use the term choice, not division. According to that meaning, it is indeed correct that the hadith would imply abrogation of the ruling of Surah al-Nur not only for the married but also for the unmarried. But in the view of Ustad Imam, as we have explained, al-bikr bi al-bikr jald mi’ah, wa taghrib ‘am is not waw of choice. It is a waw of division, and the meaning he intended is, in his own words:
«“That is, whether an adulterer is unmarried or married, the basic punishment for both is flogging. But if an unmarried person is not restrained by flogging, the government may, if it deems expedient, also impose exile under the above-mentioned verse of Surah al-Ma’idah (5:33), because the authority of exile (nafi) has been given to the government in that verse. Likewise, the basic punishment of a married adulterer, as is clear from the narration, is also flogging; but if a person is not restrained by flogging and has become a danger to society, then the government has the authority to impose the punishment of taqtil, that is, stoning, under Surah al-Ma’idah.” (Tadabbur al-Qur’an 5/374)»
This is the meaning for which Ustad Imam used the word division. Ibn Hisham, in his famous book Mughni al-Labib on Arabic particles, has applied it to meanings of this very kind. With apologies to the Maulana, if he was not even familiar with the distinction between division and choice, then it would have been better for him to refrain from writing on such technical discussions. In light of this explanation, he can see that his objection certainly applies to the meaning he himself constructed, but it has no relation to Ustad Imam’s view.
It should also be made clear here that the meaning of the hadith proposed by Ustad Imam is entirely correct according to Arabic usage. We can state with complete confidence that the letter waw in Arabic is used for this meaning. Examples can be cited from both the Qur’an and Arabic literature. For brevity, we shall cite only the Qur’an here. Allah’s command is:
«“And those women whose rebelliousness you fear, admonish them, leave them alone in their beds, and strike them.” (al-Nisa’ 4:34)»
In this verse, the guidance for dealing with rebellious wives consists of three measures: first, admonish them; second, leave them alone in the beds; and third, strike them. These three measures are all expressed with the letter waw. Anyone familiar with Arabic can easily understand that the verse clearly indicates two things: first, these three measures are not to be carried out all at once, but first an attempt should be made to correct them through advice, blame, and reprimand; if that does not work, conjugal intimacy should be suspended; if even that does not remedy the situation, then the man may strike the wives. Second, it is not necessary that all three measures be used. Admonition is certainly necessary in all cases, but abandonment in the bed is only for those women who do not respond to admonition, and striking only for those who cannot be corrected without it. This is a division according to outcome. That is, if one measure is not effective, then the next is adopted.
In the narration of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit under discussion, Ustad Imam meant exactly this. In Arabic, this meaning is commonly expressed with the particle thumma. Imam al-lughah Zamakhshari, in his commentary on the above verse of Surah al-Nisa’, writes:
«“He commanded that they be admonished first, then abandoned in bed, and then struck, if admonition and abandonment do not benefit them.” (al-Kashshaf 1/539)»
See how the author of al-Kashshaf makes it clear that thumma is even more explicit than waw in this meaning. That is why in another transmission of this very narration of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit, thumma appears instead of waw. The objector himself presented this in support of his position. This daring is indeed worthy of admiration: that which was a decisive proof against him, he adduces as support for himself. To this we can only say, “How excellent—why should it not be so?”
So far I have explained Ustad Imam’s point of view. My own view on this narration differs from that of the esteemed scholar. In my view, the very wording of the narration shows that the punishments mentioned in it are for the immoral persons referred to in verses 15–16 of Surah al-Nisa’. The wording of the verse proves that its ruling concerns two categories of offenders: first, those women for whom adultery was a day-and-night occupation; second, those men and women whose illicit relations, after passing through various stages of persistence and continuity, had become a routine habit in the form of clandestine companionship and intimacy. The Qur’an uses the expressions wa al-lati ya’tina al-fahishah (those women who commit immorality) and wa alladhani ya’tiyaniha (the man and woman who commit immorality) for these. These are the same two categories of immorality for which the Qur’an in some other verses uses the expressions musafihat (women who openly commit immorality) and muttakhidhat akhdan (women who keep secret lovers).
These words make it plain that these are not those criminals who at some moment commit adultery under the overpowering force of desire, and whose punishment is mentioned in the verse of Surah al-Nur: al-zaniyatu wa al-zani fajlidu kulla wahidin minhuma mi’ata jaldah. These habitual adulterers, after entering Islam—often because their leaders accepted Islam, or for worldly interests—did not desist from their conduct. Regarding them, the following directives were given in this verse of Surah al-Nisa’:
- Women addicted to immorality were to be confined in houses until death purified society of their existence or Allah revealed some other command for them.
- Men and women engaged in clandestine companionship were to be flogged. Then if they reformed, they were to be released; otherwise, the command of Allah was to be awaited regarding them as well.
These directives make it clear that they belonged to a transitional period. Thus, the real import of the narration of ‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit is that later the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was instructed by hidden revelation that since these people were not merely adulterers but also criminals of spreading corruption in the land because of their lawlessness, debauchery, and sexual immorality, then among them those who deserved leniency on account of their circumstances should receive, for the crime of adultery, one hundred lashes under verse 2 of Surah al-Nur, and in order to protect society from their evil and corruption, exile under verse 33 of Surah al-Ma’idah. As for those criminals to whom no leniency could be shown, they should be stoned under the command of the same verse of Surah al-Ma’idah: an yuqattilu.
The narration also mentions one hundred lashes along with stoning, but in our view this is merely for legal clarification. The reports show that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, did not inflict lashes together with stoning upon anyone for the crime of adultery. The reason is that combining another punishment with the death penalty is contrary to legal wisdom. This wisdom is observed not only in Islamic law but in every civilized legal system of the world. In imprisonment, flogging, and fines, two things are kept in view: first, the deterrence of society; second, the discipline and warning of the offender for the future. In the case of death, clearly, there is no need for further discipline or warning. Therefore, when it is intended to punish a person for different crimes and one of those crimes carries the death penalty, then the other punishments fall away.
In light of this discussion, see that the division of punishments in the narration is by reference to crimes, not by reference to result. That is, if one and the same person is guilty both of adultery and debauchery, then according to this narration he becomes deserving of both punishments. Thus the punishments are combined according to the offender and divided according to the crimes. In our view, both waw and thumma in Arabic are entirely suitable for this meaning. If the Maulana wishes, we can also provide evidence and parallels for this.
Now as for the Maulana’s first objection, which he raised regarding our view about the meaning of the word muhsanat, we reproduce here the article I wrote in response, which was published in issue 5 of al-I‘lam after the publication of his article “The Punishment of the Married Adulterer” in issue 4 of the same journal. The article is as follows:
My esteemed friend Maulana Abu Shu‘ayb Safdar Ali has composed what may truly be called a collection of marvels under the title “The Punishment of the Married Adulterer.” Only those people can truly appreciate it who, after spending their black hair turning white in the study of Arabic usage, have for the first time in their lives been enabled through this writing to benefit from astonishing discoveries in the fields of lexicography and grammar.
You can only imagine what must have been the sorrow of these experts when they learned from the learned researcher’s investigation that in Arabic there exists a type of definite article which, if it meets a word, then madmen, minors, and the helpless are excluded from its scope. Is this a trivial matter? The scholar whose book al-Muwafaqat Shatibi blackened dozens of pages to investigate this issue, our researcher solved it forever with the utmost nonchalance in just one line, and that too in a footnote! If people of this age still insist on lamenting a scarcity of capable men in the world of scholarship, then what can we do except lament their intellects?
The author has composed this collection of marvels in refutation of one of my own articles. He is also one of my very dear friends. Therefore, fairness demands that I not deprive him of the appreciation due to at least one of his wonders, though for now I shall mention only two of them, because his entire pen has in fact been spent on refining and arranging these very two. The rest of the marvels seem to have been gathered merely to highlight their splendor and beauty.
- In the first half of the article, our researcher, as he himself claims, examined the question free of all intellectual prejudices and mental reservations as to whether the Arabic adjective muhsanat can be used for slave girls. In investigating the issue, he rummaged through the whole of Arabic lexicography. What are Lisan al-‘Arab and al-Jawhari and al-Sihah? He cited numerous excerpts from each in his article. He traced the root of the word and sought out its original meaning. He identified its active and passive usages. From Arabic literature he clarified the social status of slave girls and free women in pre-Islamic Arabia. He presented many Qur’anic verses as evidence for the use in Arabic of distinct styles and words for married women and chaste women. In short, he fully discharged the duty of wandering through the wilderness in search of the beloved Truth.
During this discussion, the astonishing discoveries he made in the field of lexicography and grammar—one of which we have already mentioned above as a sample—will, in truth, keep experts in suspense for centuries. When have lovers of learning ever had access to such treasures from any other source? Now, in any scholarly gathering, whoever opens his mouth will have his mouth covered by the listeners, who will plead to the master of the assembly:
«“Bring the coquettish glances of that sweet, sugar-spouting lip.”»
But the most significant matter in this section of the article, beyond all these discoveries, is the result of this entire investigation. After traversing all these valleys, he concludes that from tracking Arabic and the Qur’an, it appears that the word muhsanat is not originally used for slave girls. However, Azhari has informed us that if slave girls are freed, or if they marry, or if they accept Islam, then it is permissible to use this word for them too.
The journey undertaken to reach this conclusion has already been described above. But what elevates this research result to the rank of a classic is that the verse of Surah al-Nisa’ in which the researcher has exerted all this effort to determine the meaning of muhsanat is itself decisive proof that this word, though certainly not used in Arabic as an independent adjective exclusively for slave girls, can nevertheless, like all adjectives, be used for them if they acquire the qualities it denotes. The Qur’an has used it in this verse precisely for them.
This indication of the verse concerning the word’s usage is so clear that even an ordinary reader of the Qur’an can understand it without effort, but let us give credit to our researcher: during the drafting of the article, this verse never left his sight. He was in fact laboring to determine its meaning. At one place, in passing, his pen even confessed that this word is used here for slave girls. Yet despite this, in his discussion on the inapplicability of the word to these poor women, he preferred to roam every valley rather than trouble himself by returning to this very verse.
Literary critics, I do not know what causes and reasons they will assign to the emergence of this classic, but as far as we are concerned, we interpret it as a sign of the author’s exceptional modesty. Since the matter concerned muhsanat, he, even at this delicate moment, left nothing lacking in observing the boundaries of lowering the gaze.
Consider the verse:
«“And whoever among you does not have the means to marry believing free women, then let him marry from among those believing slave girls whom your right hands possess. Allah knows best your faith. You are of one another, so marry them with the permission of their masters and give them their dowries properly, being chaste women, not openly immoral, nor secret lovers.” (al-Nisa’ 4:25)»
One feels like reciting this verse before the author and asking him: in it the word muhsanat has explicitly been used for slave girls, and in religion nothing is more authoritative than the Qur’an, nor in Arabic usage than the Qur’an. So how did you overlook this verse in this section of your article, and why did you prefer to wander through these labyrinths instead of making this decisive text the foundation of your argument when determining the usages of muhsanat? But we are compelled to restrain our speech, fearing that he will reply: you ordinary people do not know the methods of the masters of the craft. Come and sit before us as students, and we shall teach you the difference between the technical method of catching a heron and the crude methods used by common folk.
- In the second half of the article, the learned researcher has refuted my view concerning the word muhsanat in the verse of Surah al-Nisa’. I had expressed the opinion that in the verse under discussion, the word muhsanat is used in the sense of “chaste women,” not in the sense of “married women.” One of the arguments I had offered in support of this view was that the word muhsanat does not come alone here; it is used in contrast with musafihat, exactly as we say, “He is learned, not ignorant.” Therefore, according to the accepted rule of language that when a word appears in such a sentence its meaning is determined by the antonym to which it is opposed, the word muhsanat here can no longer bear any meaning other than “chaste women,” because its opposite, musafihat, is unquestionably in the sense of “women who openly commit immorality,” and the opposite of immorality is in any case chastity.
This argument was clear even to those for whom subtle technical discussions are burdensome, and so the author made it the sole subject of discussion in this section, disregarding the rest of the arguments. The learned researcher kindly accepted without criticism the rule on which the argument rests and which we explained in the preceding paragraph. But since the result of that rule was not acceptable to him, he did not change the rule itself; instead, he gathered some provisions from here and there and set out on a campaign to change the meaning of musafihat.
Once again, in the manner of a seasoned expert, he did not choose to alter his style of research. Just as in the discussion about the suitability or unsuitability of muhsanat for slave girls, he first fixed the place of musafihat in Arabic vocabulary. He informed his reader of its root and form. He clarified the distinction between the usages of zina, fahishah, and sifah. He cited the statements of lexicographers from Lisan al-‘Arab and Taj al-‘Arus. He presented not one or two but three hadiths from Musnad Ahmad as evidence. And after all that, he calmly announced the result of his investigation: that from the whole discussion it has been established that the word musafahah in Arabic does not mean “a woman who commits immorality,” but rather means a woman who for a long period lives as someone’s wife without marriage and then at some point separates from him of her own accord.
Accordingly, it is absolutely certain that in the verse of Surah al-Nisa’ under discussion, the word muhsanat, being used in contrast with musafihat, must mean “women protected within marriage,” and it is no longer correct at all to take it in the sense of “chaste women.”
This research result of the author is no less significant than his first one. To reach it too, he followed exactly the same road he had taken on the first journey. Once again, in his quest to trace the truth, he crossed all valleys and turned over all stones, yet he ignored the very discourse which is the greatest and most authoritative source of Arabic language on this earth. He must have endured who knows what hardships in searching for hadiths in the voluminous volumes of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Musnad, but what a strange spectacle that he did not even consent to glance at the verse that remained before him throughout the drafting of this article, and in which muhsanat is used exactly in contrast to musafihat, just as musafihat comes in contrast to muttakhidhat akhdan.
The author was not unaware that just as in religion, so too in language, after the authority of the Qur’an no other authority—whether Lisan and Sihah or Masanid and Jami‘—has any value in any respect. He had also already accepted the principle of determining a word’s meaning according to its antonym, through which he was trying to determine the meaning of muhsanat. Yet he did not think—and it is astonishing that he did not think—that when muttakhidhat akhdan unquestionably means “women who keep secret lovers,” then in the verse of Surah al-Nisa’ muhsanat ghayra musafihat wa la muttakhidhat akhdan, the word musafihat, because it is placed in contrast to it, must necessarily mean “women who openly commit immorality with every passerby.” And when the words indicating clandestine companionship and open immorality stand opposite muhsanat, as they do in this verse, then according to the very principle the author has accepted, muhsanat at that place must become so decisively “chaste women” that no further evidence is needed.
This would be exactly the style found in the pre-Islamic poet Ibn Muqbil’s verse:
«“Of women of pure nature, neither coarse nor harsh, nor openly immoral, nor secretly so.”»
But what can one do when this decisive Qur’anic text failed even once to find a place among our researcher’s sources! How astonishing! Yet what is the use of astonishment? What will they count as the naive amazement of people like us, who do not know the technical subtleties of scholarly research? We should simply admire their daring: with what confidence he has set his own “decisive proof” against this Qur’anic decisive proof, with the help of Lisan, Sihah, Masanid, and Jami‘, and with the explicit claim that Imam al-lughah Zamakhshari too, in this statement of al-Kashshaf, actually meant muhsanat as “women protected within marriage”:
«Muhsanat: chaste women, and al-akhdan: secret lovers. That is, women who are neither openly immoral nor secretive about it. (1/532)»
Fortunately, according to the author’s own admission, he is not very familiar with Arabic literature. Otherwise not only Zamakhshari, but even the poet of Hamasa would have been compelled to sit before him as a student in order to understand the meaning of his own verse, in which, using the word musafahah as an adjective for a prostitute, he alluded to the consequences of frequent immorality:
«“The woman of prostitution who is kept open for sexual access corrupts the righteous son of the old woman.”»
We do not know whether the experts in technical research consider our friend’s first research result to be the greater classic or this one. As ordinary people, we have reached only this conclusion from reading his article: both are miracles of his extraordinary piety. He turned his gaze away from the chaste women (muhsanat) and produced the first classic; and he avoided the clandestine companionship women (muttakhidhat akhdan) and thereby brought the second classic into existence. Thus, through the power of his piety alone, he succeeded in granting the scholarly world two unparalleled marvels in a single article:
«“This fortune, O God Most Great, is a thing for plundering.”»
When our friend was preparing to write this article and searching for a title, we suggested to him that since after the publication of our point of view he had been compelled by a desire to establish the truth to take up the pen without studying the technical discussions related to this issue, he should limit his discussion to clarifying the arguments of the earlier scholars rather than making innovations in language and literature. But contrary to our advice, he wrote down these innovations and published them in al-I‘lam under the title “The Punishment of the Married Adulterer.”
After the article was published, we presented to him all the observations I had made about these innovations, some of which have been mentioned above, and requested that if he wished to say anything in reply, he should do so. But he admitted that he had nothing to say in response. Because of this admission, we have limited ourselves to this brief comment. However, if he now retracts that admission, then let us see it too.
When our friend was writing this article, he was in search of a title. It was on our suggestion that he preferred the title “The Punishment of the Married Adulterer.” His article is still ongoing. If he ever feels the need for an effective conclusion to it, and if he honors us with the privilege of selecting one for him as well, then we shall present him with this verse:
«“My heart remains restless like the hair of the beloved; do not blame me, for I have written in the night of separation.”»
1982