house to give him a beating, and he was beaten with shoes and sticks.28 Another incident is related in which the person who had drunk wine was beaten with hands and with shoes and with garments (thaub).29 Such remained the practice in the time of the Holy Prophet and that of Abū Bakr, and for some time during the caliphate of ‘Umar, and very mild punishment was inflicted with hands or shoes or ardiya (pl. of ridā’, being the wrapping garment covering the upper half of the body), but ‘Umar then introduced flogging, giving forty stripes, raising the punishment to eighty stripes, it is added, when people behaved inordinately (‘atau) and transgressed limits (fasaqū).30 It is very likely that this punishment, or at any rate the severer punishment, was inflicted for disturbing the public peace by drunkards.

General directions for execution of punishment

Punishment must be inflicted irrespective of a person’s status, nor should mediation be accepted in such cases. When, in the case of a certain woman who was guilty of theft, some people sought to intercede on her behalf through Usāmah, since she came of a good family, the Holy Prophet was enraged and said, Dost thou intercede in the matter of a ḥadd (punishment)? and then addressed the people in general, saying, “Those before you went astray, for, when one of them committed a crime and he was a great man, they would not punish him, and when he was a poor man they would execute the punishment” (Bu. 86:12). But leniency was shown in the execution of punishment when the guilty person showed signs of repentance31. It is strictly forbidden that one man should be punished for the crime of another.32 Nor is any punishment to be inflicted on a mad man or a minor.33 The punishment of the pregnant woman is to be deferred until she has delivered her child.34