to what is in the Torah” (AD. 37:26).

Jewish practice followed by the Holy Prophet at first

These reports leave not the shadow of a doubt that stoning was the punishment of adultery in the Jewish law, and that it was in the case of Jewish offenders that this punishment was first resorted to by the Holy Prophet when he came to Madīnah. There are other reports which show that the same punishment was given in certain cases when the offenders were Muslims, but apparently this was before the revelation of the verse (24:2) which speaks of flogging as the punishment for both the adulterer and the adulteress, it being the practice of the Holy Prophet to follow the earlier revealed law until he received a definite revelation on a point. A suggestion to that effect is contained in a ḥadīth: “Shaibānī says, I asked ‘Abd Allāh ibn Abī Aufā, Did the Holy Prophet stone to death? He said, Yes. I said, Was it before the chapter entitled the Light (the 24th chapter) was revealed or after it? The reply was, I do not know” (Bu. 87:6). The chapter referred to is that which speaks of flogging as a punishment for adultery, and the question shows clearly that the practice of stoning for adultery was recognized as being against the plain injunction contained in that chapter. It is likely that some misunderstanding arose from the incidents which happened before the Qur’ānic revelation on the point, and that that practice was taken as the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet. The Khwārij, the earliest Muslim sect, entirely rejected stoning to death (rajm) as a punishment in Islam19 .

The question seems to have arisen early as to how an adulterer could be stoned, when the Holy Qur’ān prescribed flogging as the only punishment for adultery. ‘Umar is reported to have said that “there are people who say, What about stoning, for the punishment prescribed in the Book of Allāh is flogging”20. To such objectors ‘Umar’s reply was: “In what Allāh revealed, there was the verse of rajm (stoning); we read it and we understood it and we guarded it; the Holy Prophet did stone (adulterers to death) and we also stoned after him, but I fear that when more time passes away, a sayer would say, We do not find the verse of rajm in the Book of Allāh”.21 According to