What is the punishment for a married adulterer

 Question:

What is the rational or textual evidence for the punishment of stoning? May Allah reward you for your good answer.




Answer:

Praise be to Allah and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family and companions. As for what follows:





The Book of Allah Almighty and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, have indicated the punishment of stoning for the married adulterer. Among the evidences is what has been proven about stoning from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in his words and actions in reports that resemble mutawatir, and the companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, agreed upon it. Allah Almighty revealed it in His Book, and its recitation was only abrogated but not its ruling. On the authority of Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, he said: Allah Almighty sent Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with the truth and revealed the Book to him. Among what was revealed to him was the verse of stoning, so I read it, understood it, and memorized it. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stoned, and we stoned after him. I fear that if time passes, someone will say, “We do not find stoning in the Book of Allah,” and they will go astray by abandoning an obligation that Allah Almighty revealed. Stoning is a right upon the married adulterer, whether male or female, if proof is established, or there is pregnancy or confession. I have read it: “If an old man and an old woman commit adultery, stone them both. It is a punishment from Allah, and Allah is Almighty.” A wise man. Agreed upon.




Among the evidence is what Al-Bukhari narrated on the authority of Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him): A man from the tribe of Aslam came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) while he was in the mosque and said: He has committed adultery. So he turned away from him. So he stepped aside to the side that he had turned away from and testified against himself four times. Then he called him and said: Are you mad? Are you married? He said: Yes. So he ordered that he be stoned in the prayer place. When the stones slipped him, he jumped until he reached Al-Harrah and was killed. Al-Bukhari narrated on the authority of Al-Sha’bi the hadith of Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) when he stoned the woman on Friday and said: I stoned her according to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

Al-Bukhari narrated from the hadith of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) who said: When Ma’iz bin Malik came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), he said to him: Perhaps you kissed, winked, or looked. He said: No, O Messenger of Allah. He said: You have intercourse with her! Do not use a euphemism. He said: Then he ordered him to be stoned.



Muslim narrated from Ubadah bin As-Samit who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: Take from me, take from me. Allah has made a way for them: A virgin with a virgin, one hundred lashes and exile for one year, and a married woman with a married woman, one hundred lashes and stoning.



Muslim narrated from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah and Zayd bin Khalid Al-Juhani who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: Go tomorrow, O Anas, to this man’s wife. If she confesses, stone her. He said: So he went to her tomorrow and she confessed, so the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ordered her to be stoned. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him



) also stoned the woman from Ghamidiyah and the two Jews who committed adultery.



Allah has made the punishment lighter for virgins and more severe for married men. The reason for making it lighter for virgins is the same as the reason for making it more severe for married men. Islamic law is based on virtue and is concerned with morals, honor, and lineage from pollution and mixing. It requires a person to struggle with his desires and not respond to them except through lawful means, which is marriage. It also requires him, when he reaches puberty, to marry so as not to expose himself to temptation or burden himself with what he cannot bear. If he does not marry and desire overcomes his mind and determination, his punishment is to be flogged one hundred times and exiled for a year. His intercessor in this light punishment is his delay in marriage, which led to the crime. However, if he marries, becomes married, and then commits the crime, his punishment is flogging and stoning, because marriage closes the door to crime, and because the law did not make marriage an avenue for crime after marriage. It did not make marriage eternal so that neither of the spouses would fall into sin if what was between them became corrupt. It permitted the wife to seek divorce due to absence, illness, harm, or insolvency. It permitted the husband to divorce at any time, and made it permissible for him to do so. He is allowed to marry more than one woman, provided that he treats them equally. Thus, the Sharia opened the doors of what is permissible for the married man, and closed the doors of what is forbidden for him. It was just - since the reasons that lead to crime from the perspective of reason and nature had been cut off - that the excuses that call for a lighter punishment should be cut off, and that the married man should be subjected to the punishment of extermination, which is the only suitable punishment for what is difficult to reform.



Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said in his book A’lam al-Muwaqqi’in, Vol. 2, p. 110: As for the adulterer , he commits adultery with his entire body, and the pleasure of satisfying his desire affects the body, and most of what he does is with the consent of the one he is committing adultery with, so he is not afraid as a thief fears being sought, so he is punished with flogging that covers his entire body once and stoning another time. And since adultery is one of the mothers of crimes and major sins because it involves mixing lineages, which nullifies acquaintance and mutual support for reviving the religion, and in this there is the destruction of crops and offspring, so it resembles in its meanings or in most of them killing, which results in the destruction of that, so it is deterred from it by retaliation so that whoever intends to do such an act will be deterred from doing it, and this will return him to the development of this world and the improvement of the world that leads to establishing acts of worship that lead to the bliss of the Hereafter.

Someone might say, what is this “barbarism” and “savagery” in Islam??
Najibah stoning the adulterer/adultess to death is a punishment that Islam did not bring, but rather it was in the law of those who came before us.

We read from the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 22:

20- But if this matter is true and the virginity of the girl is not found,
21- They shall bring out the girl to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she has committed an abomination in Israel, by playing the adultery in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you. 22- If a man
is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall be put to death, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall put away the evil from among Israel. 23- If a young virgin is betrothed to a man, and a man finds her in the city and lies with him , 24- You shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them with stones that they die, the girl because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife. So you shall put away the evil from among you. ----





We only remind you that the one who carries out the punishment of stoning is the ruling authority or the one who does Her position