The one guilty of zina: how many times is he turned back, and what is done with him after his confession?

Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Sayyiduna Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: I have committed adultery. He asked: Does this man have no one? So he (peace and blessings be upon him) sent him back. Then he came three times, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Does this man have no one? Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) sent him back. When he came the fourth time, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Stone him. So he threw stones at him, and we threw stones at him; and he began to flee, and we pursued him. Amir said: Jabir said to me: It was here that we killed him.

Sayyiduna Nu'aym bin Hazzal (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) was under the care of my father. He committed adultery with a slave girl of the tribe, so my father said to him: Go to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and tell him (peace and blessings be upon him) what you have done, and he will seek forgiveness for you. By this my father intended that he (peace and blessings be upon him) would make a way out for him. So he came to him (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), I have committed adultery; establish the ruling of the Book of Allah on me. He (peace and blessings be upon him) turned away from him. Then he came to him (peace and blessings be upon him) again, until the narrator mentioned four times. Then he came to him (peace and blessings be upon him) the fourth time and said: O Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), I have committed adultery; establish the ruling of the Book of Allah on me. At this the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Have you not said this four times? So with whom was it? He said: With such-and-such a woman. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Did you lie with her? He said: Yes. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: Did you have relations with her? He said: Yes. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked again: Did you have intercourse with her? He said: Yes. The narrator said: He (peace and blessings be upon him) gave the order concerning him, so he was stoned: he was taken out to the land of Harrah. When he felt the blows of the stones, he ran out quickly. Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Unays (may Allah be pleased with him) met him, and the companions who were stoning him had been unable to keep up with him. He pulled out the thin part of the shank of his camel, struck him with it and killed him. Then he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and mentioned this to him (peace and blessings be upon him). He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Why did you not leave him? Perhaps he would have repented, and Allah would have accepted his repentance.

Sayyiduna Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: I have committed adultery! He (peace and blessings be upon him) turned away from him, until he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) the fourth time. Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) gave the order concerning him, so he was stoned. When the pain of the stones reached him, he began to flee from the pain. Then a man who had a camel's jawbone in his hand met him, struck him and brought him down. His fleeing when he felt the pain of the stones was mentioned before the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Why did you not leave him?

Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and confessed before him (peace and blessings be upon him) three times. I said: If you confess before him (peace and blessings be upon him) a fourth time, there will be a punishment! Then by his (peace and blessings be upon him) order he was confined, meaning he was stoned.

Mughirah reports that al-Sha'bi said: Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) testified against himself four times that he had committed adultery, so by the order of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) he was stoned.

Sayyiduna Jabir bin Samurah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) when Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) was brought. A very hairy man with strong muscles was brought, wearing a waist wrapper. He (peace and blessings be upon him) sent him back twice, then he (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered that he be stoned.

Sayyiduna Buraydah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Sayyiduna Ma'iz bin Malik al-Aslami (may Allah be pleased with him) came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: I have wronged myself and I have committed adultery, and I want you (peace and blessings be upon him) to purify me. He (peace and blessings be upon him) sent him back. When the next day came, he came to him (peace and blessings be upon him) again and said: O Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), I have committed adultery. He (peace and blessings be upon him) sent him back a second time. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) sent a messenger to his people and said: Do you consider there to be anything wrong with his mind? Do you see anything amiss in him? They said: We know nothing about him except that his mind is like that of the righteous among us, as far as we can see. The narrator said: Then he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) a third time, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) again sent a messenger to his people and asked about him. They informed him that there was nothing wrong with him or with his mind. When he came the fourth time, he (peace and blessings be upon him) had a pit dug for him, and then by his (peace and blessings be upon him) order he was stoned.

Sayyiduna Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came and confessed to adultery three times. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked about him, then by his (peace and blessings be upon him) order he was stoned. We threw pieces of pottery, small stones and bones at him. We did not dig a pit for him and we did not tie him up. He ran ahead of us towards the place called Harrah and we followed him. Then he turned towards us and stood, and we threw stones at him until he fell silent. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) neither sought forgiveness for him nor spoke ill of him.

Sayyiduna Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: We were with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) on a journey when a man came and confessed to having committed adultery. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sent this man back three times. When he came the fourth time, he (peace and blessings be upon him) dismounted and gave the order concerning him (peace and blessings be upon him), so he was stoned. This weighed very heavily on him (peace and blessings be upon him), until I perceived its effect on his (peace and blessings be upon him) face. When his (peace and blessings be upon him) anger had passed, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: O Abu Dharr, your companion has been forgiven. The narrator said: It used to be said that his repentance is that the prescribed punishment be established on him.

Al-Shaybani said: I asked Sayyiduna Ibn Abi Awfa (may Allah be pleased with him): Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carry out stoning? He said: Yes. I asked: After the revelation of Surah al-Nur or before it? He said: I do not know.

Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said that Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I fear that a long time will pass over the people until someone will say: We do not find the ruling of stoning in the Book of Allah! So they will go astray by abandoning an obligation whose ruling Allah has revealed. Beware! The ruling of stoning is true when a man is married, or when clear evidence is established, or there is pregnancy, or a confession. And I have recited it, its translation being: The married man and the married woman, when they both commit zina, stone them without fail. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carried out stoning, and we carried out stoning after him (peace and blessings be upon him). Sufyan was asked: Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carry out stoning? He said: Yes.

Sufyan was asked: Did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carry out stoning? He said: Yes.

Shu'bah said: I asked Hammad about a man who confesses to zina (unlawful sexual intercourse): how many times is he to be sent back? He said: Once. And I asked al-Hakam, and he said: Four times.

And I asked al-Hakam, and he said: Four times.

Sa'id bin al-Musayyib said: Sayyiduna Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came to Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) and informed him: I have committed adultery. Sayyiduna Abu Bakr said to him: Have you mentioned this to anyone other than me? He said: No. Sayyiduna Abu Bakr said to him: Conceal your fault and Allah will conceal you, and repent to Allah, for people feel indignation but do not reproach, and Allah, the Lord of Might, accepts repentance from His servants. But his soul found no rest until he came to Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) and mentioned to him the same as he had mentioned to Sayyiduna Abu Bakr. Sayyiduna Umar also gave him the same answer that Sayyiduna Abu Bakr had given. His soul found no rest until he came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and informed him (peace and blessings be upon him): I have committed adultery. He (peace and blessings be upon him) turned away from him, until he had said it before him (peace and blessings be upon him) several times. When it became too much, he (peace and blessings be upon him) sent a messenger to his people and said to them: Is he ill? Or has madness afflicted him? They said: No, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he is perfectly sound. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: Is he unmarried or previously married? They said: Rather, he is previously married. So by his (peace and blessings be upon him) order he was stoned.

Sa'id bin al-Musayyib reports that Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carried out stoning, Sayyiduna Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) carried out stoning, and I have carried out stoning.

Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said that Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Stoning is one of the prescribed punishments of Allah, so let none of you be deceived about it. The sign of this is that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) carried out stoning, Sayyiduna Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) carried out stoning, and I too have carried out stoning.

Abu Uthman bin Nasr reports that his father said: I was among those who stoned Sayyiduna Ma'iz (may Allah be pleased with him). When he felt the pain of the stones, he began to say: Take me back to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). I rejected this. The narrator said: I came to Asim bin Umar and said: Al-Hasan bin Muhammad Ibn al-Hanafiyyah says: Word has reached me! But I rejected it. Then I came to Sayyiduna Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) and said: Al-Aslami has mentioned something of the words of Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him): Take me back. I reject that! He replied: I was among those who stoned him. And he said: He felt the pain of the stones and said: Take me back to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), for my people have put me in trouble, and the people said: Go to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he will not kill you. But we did not leave him until we had killed him. Then when his state was mentioned before the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Why did you not leave him so that I could look into his situation?

Sayyiduna Abu Barzah (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned a man from among us whose name was Ma'iz bin Malik.

Najih Abu Ali said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stoned the adulterer, and Sayyiduna Abu Bakr and Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) also stoned the adulterer, and their practice is a Sunnah.

Sayyiduna Nu'aym (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Sayyiduna Ma'iz bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), I have committed adultery, so may you (peace and blessings be upon him) establish upon me the ruling of the Book of Allah. He turned away from him. He said again: I have committed adultery, so may you (peace and blessings be upon him) establish upon me the ruling of the Book of Allah. He (peace and blessings be upon him) again turned away from him, until he had mentioned it four times. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Take him away and stone him. When the pain of the stones became very severe for him, he ran. Just then Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Unays, or Ibn Anas, came out from his wilderness, struck him with the shank of a camel and knocked him down, and the people pelted him with stones until they killed him. Then his fleeing was mentioned before the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Why did you not leave him, so that he might repent and Allah would accept his repentance? O Hazzal, or he said: O Hazzan! If you had covered him with your garment, that would have been better for you than what you did.