Select a passage to highlight it. Click or tap a highlight to remove it.
Text and translation
English translation
2558. It was narrated that Barâ' bin 'Azib said: "The Messenger of Allâh ﷺ passed by a Jew with a blackened face who had been flogged. He called them and said: 'Is this the punishment for the adulterer that you find in your Book?' They said: 'Yes.' Then he called one of their scholars and said: 'I adjure you by Allâh Who
sent down the Tawrâh (Torah) to Musa! Is this the punishment for the adulterer that you find in your Book?' He said: 'No; if you had not adjured me by Allâh, I would not have told you. The punishment for the adulterer that we find in our Book is stoning, but many of our nobles were being stoned (because of the prevalence of adultery among them), so if we caught one of our nobles (committing adultery), we would let him go; but if we caught one of the weak among us, we would carry out the punishment on him. We said: "Come, let us agree upon something that we may impose on both noble and weak alike." So we agreed to blacken the face and whip them, instead of stoning.' The Prophet ﷺ said: 'O Allâh, I am the first of those who revive Your command which they had killed off,' and he issued orders that (the man) be stoned." (Sahih)
Your commentary saves automatically in this browser, separate from the published commentary. It stays private unless you include it in a shared study file.
Commentary
This is a deviation which the Jewish people strayed into; to make a law and attribute it to Allâh. Muslims are warned to restrain themselves from this wrongdoing.
Those customs which are in contradiction of Divine law, should be brought in confirmation of the Divine law.
The present version of the Bible contains the orders of death for an adulterer.
The law should be applied on nobles and weak alike.
