The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 190
CH. 4 AN-NISA' weaning people from immoral practices. As the offence mentioned is a serious one, four witnesses are considered necessary in order to prevent injustice being done to women. Some scholars have sought to interpret the verse in the light of a saying of the Holy Prophet which runs as follows: "Learn from me, Allah has indeed opened for them a way, which is that if an unmarried couple commit fornication with each other they should receive a hundred stripes and should be banished for verse means one year. But if a married man commits adultery with a married woman, then they should receive a hundred stripes each and be stoned to death" (Jarir, iv. 182). These scholars hold that the word (faḥishah) mentioned in the "adultery" and that this verse prescribed that the women who committed adultery were to be detained in their houses till their death or till the time when God should open a way for them, i. e. reveal the law concerning them; and that the law which was afterwards revealed was to the effect that an unmarried woman committing fornication should receive a hundred stripes and one year's banishment, while a married woman guilty of adultery should be stoned to death after she had received a hundred stripes. This interpretation, however, is open to many objections: 1. If the words, confine them to the houses until death overtake them or Allah open for them a way, mean that they were to be detained in their 630 PT. 4 houses until God gave His law concerning them, the question is, what hindered God from giving His law at the very time of the revelation of the verse under comment? There is no hint here that the time was not yet ripe for such a law to be revealed. In this case, the only inference will be that God hesitated to give the necessary law at the time when this verse was revealed because He was not yet decided, the matter being still under His consideration. Such a supposition cannot be made about God. 2. The law mentioned in the above- quoted ḥadīth is not found in the Quran. 3. The Holy Prophet's own practice was against this ḥadīth. No less than four persons were stoned to death for adultery in his lifetime, but none of them was given the punishment of a hundred stripes before being stoned as the above-mentioned ḥadīth prescribes. It may also be pointed out here that according to the usage of the Quran, the word (faḥishah) does not always mean "adultery" but as shown under Important Words above, it is also applied to all sorts of excesses or sins or crimes or acts exceeding the bounds of rectitude. For this meaning of the word the reader is referred to 33:31 which says: O wives of the Prophet, if any of you be guilty of manifestly dishonourable) فاحشة مبينة conduct); and 65:2 which says: unless they commit (an act which is manifestly foul); and 7:29 which says: and when they commit at (a foul