each of them (with) a hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you from obedience to Allāh if you believe in Allāh and the Last Day, and let a party of believers witness their chastisement” (24:2). In the case of slave-girls, who are guilty of adultery, the punishment is half of this: “Then if they (the slave-girls) are guilty of adultery when they are taken in marriage, they shall suffer half the punishment for free married women” (4:25).

These are the only verses speaking of punishment for adultery, and they clearly show that flogging, and not death or stoning to death, is the punish ment for adultery. In fact 4:25 precludes all possibility of death having ever been looked upon by the Holy Qur’ān as a punishment for adultery. It speaks clearly of the punishment of adultery in the case of married slave-girls, and says further that punishment for them is half the punishment of adultery in the case of free married women. It is generally thought that while the Holy Qur’ān prescribes flogging as a punishment for fornication, i.e., when the guilty person is not married, stoning to death is the punishment for adultery, and that this is allegedly based on the Holy Prophet’s practice. But the Holy Qur’ān plainly speaks of the punishment for adultery in the case of married slave-girls as being half the punishment of adultery in the case of free married women (muḥsanāt), and therefore death or stoning to death cannot be conceived of as possible punishment in case of adultery as it cannot be halved, while imprisonment or flogging may be. Thus the Holy Qur’ān not only speaks of flogging and not death, as punishment for adultery, but it positively excludes death or stoning to death.

Flogging

A few words may be added as to the method of flogging. The Arabic word for flogging is jald which means skin, and jalada signifies he hit or hurt his skin (LL.). Jald (flogging) was therefore a punishment which should be felt by the skin, and it aimed more at disgracing the culprit than torturing him. In the time of the Holy Prophet, and even for some time after him, there was no whip, and flogging was carried out by beating with a stick or with the hand or with shoes.15 It is further stated by the same authority that the culprit was not stripped naked