Question · 11 min read
Stoning is not in the Quran — so why is it Islamic law?
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The Quran prescribes one hundred lashes for zina (Quran 24:2). The wording is general (“the adulterer and the adulteress”), with no division by marital status and no mention of stoning. Yet classical Sunni jurisprudence prescribes death by stoning for the married adulterer. The ruling comes from the Sunna: classical law grounds it primarily in the Prophet’s recorded practice and in the hadith of Ubada ibn al-Samit, with Umar’s testimony (that a “stoning verse” was once part of the Quran and is absent from the codex) as corroboration. The tradition bridges the gap with naskh al-tilawa duna al-hukm: the recitation was abrogated while its ruling remained. The doctrine is internally consistent, but its consistency does not preserve the larger claim. It makes an absent text legally binding through human reports and thereby reduces “perfect preservation” to the stability of the canonical codex, not the completeness of revealed material. The evidence below establishes that verdict.
What the texts say
Primary. Quran 24:2 prescribes one hundred lashes for zina.1 Quran 24:2, tr. Pickthall (text). “The adulterer and the adulteress, scourge ye each one of them (with) a hundred stripes. And let not pity for the twain withhold you from obedience to Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a party of believers witness their punishment.” The verse states no restriction to the unmarried and contains no second penalty for the married.
Primary. The law rests on more than Umar’s testimony. Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Hudud, carries the hadith of Ubada ibn al-Samit: “Receive (teaching) from me… Allah has ordained a way for those (women),” prescribing a hundred lashes and stoning for the married.2 Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Hudud, narrated ‘Ubada b. as-Samit; tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui (full text). “Receive (teaching) from me, receive (teaching) from me. Allah has ordained a way for those (women). When an unmarried male commits adultery with an unmarried female (they should receive) one hundred lashes and banishment for one year. And in case of married male committing adultery with a married female, they shall receive one hundred lashes and be stoned to death.” The tradition reads its opening as delivering the “way” Quran 4:15 promised when it confined convicted women to their houses until Allah should appoint a way for them. Reports of the Prophet applying stoning to Ma’iz, the woman of Ghamid, and two Jews also appear in the Sahihayn. Classical jurisprudence rests the penalty primarily on this practice and the Ubada hadith; Umar’s verse-testimony corroborates it.
Primary. Umar’s testimony appears in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim: speaking from the minbar, he declared that stoning came in what Allah revealed, that they recited it, and that he feared people would later deny it was ever in the Book.3 Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Hudud, narrated Ibn ‘Abbas; tr. Muhsin Khan (full text). From Umar’s sermon: “Allah sent Muhammad with the Truth and revealed the Holy Book to him, and among what Allah revealed, was the Verse of the Rajam (the stoning of married person (male & female) who commits illegal sexual intercourse, and we did recite this Verse and understood and memorized it. Allah’s Messenger did carry out the punishment of stoning and so did we after him. I am afraid that after a long time has passed, somebody will say, ‘By Allah, we do not find the Verse of the Rajam in Allah’s Book,’ and thus they will go astray by leaving an obligation which Allah has revealed.” The verse’s remembered wording (“the old man and the old woman, if they commit adultery, stone them outright”) and Umar’s remark that he would have written it into the codex himself were he not afraid of being accused of adding to the Quran are carried outside the Sahihayn, in the Muwatta (Kitab al-Hudud) and Sunan Ibn Majah, in reports the tradition grades sahih.
Reported. The juristic reconciliation shrinks 24:2 to the unmarried only, a restriction the verse does not state, and imports the capital ruling for the married from a verse that is, by the tradition’s own account, not in the mushaf.
A point of method keeps the anomaly located where it actually is. Restricting a general Quranic wording by the Sunna is routine takhsis, a standard tool used across the law. The schools debated only which grade of report may do it. If the stoning ruling rested on ordinary sahih reports alone, the restriction of 24:2 would be an unremarkable instance of a standard operation. The anomaly this page presses lies beneath the restriction, in the deleted-verse doctrine.
Primary. The stoning ruling is corroborated by the three-categories hadith (in both Sahihs, narrated by Ibn Mas’ud),4 Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Diyat, narrated ‘Abdullah (Ibn Mas’ud); tr. Muhsin Khan (full text). “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims.” which permits a Muslim’s blood in three cases, the married adulterer among them. That report thereby embeds a capital ruling with no Quranic wording behind it inside the very hadith most often cited to license another such ruling: the apostasy penalty. The two operations are symmetric: Quran 2:256 subordinated to the apostasy hadith, Quran 24:2 subordinated to the stoning hadith. The apostasy side of that symmetry is treated in Kufr, Apostasy, and the Operational Inversion of Qur’an and Sunna, §5.
The tradition’s answer: naskh al-tilawa
Classical legal theory recognizes three kinds of abrogation: a ruling abrogated while its recitation is preserved; a recitation abrogated while its ruling is preserved; and both abrogated together. The second category, naskh al-tilawa duna al-hukm, is the one that carries the stoning verse. On this doctrine, the stoning verse was genuine Quran whose wording God deliberately withdrew before the book was sealed, while its law remained in force. The doctrine is grounded in Quran 2:106 — “We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten”5 Quran 2:106, tr. Pickthall (text). “Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?” — and 87:6–7. On this reading, the preservation promise of Quran 15:9 covers the finalized text from its sealing onward; the missing verse was un-revealed before the book closed.
Why does the doctrine exist at all? Because Sunni jurisprudence requires stoning while Quran 24:2 prescribes only lashes. The doctrine bridges a missing Quranic basis with a required ruling. The full case study is in the qadar reference document, the section on naskh al-tilawa and the preservation promise.
Deductive — and a concession. The framework is internally consistent if recitation and legal force are independent statuses that God may change separately. The stoning report therefore does not, by itself, disprove Quranic preservation or invalidate the whole tradition. The criticism concerns what this definition of preservation retains and gives up.
The three costs
First: the preservation claim narrows. “Preserved” no longer means that every wording ever revealed remains in hand. Read with 2:106’s “or cause it to be forgotten,” it means preservation of the intended final recitation. That is not empty: abrogation closes with the Prophet’s death, so the claim still excludes later additions and losses. What it no longer guarantees is completeness across the revelation-era record, which is the stronger content often claimed for 15:9.
Second: every reported absence has a ready category. Once preservation permits deliberately absent revealed wording, reports of missing revelation can be classified as abrogated recitation. The manuscript record substantially supports the canonical codex’s stability, so this classification does its work on the revelation-era side of the line drawn under the first cost.
Third: the boundary of what counts as Quran depends on transmitted testimony. That the stoning verse “was” Quran is known through Umar’s report. The contents of the mushaf are known through the collection narratives and the Uthmanic standardisation — which included, according to Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Fada’il al-Qur’an, the burning of variant codices.6 Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab Fada’il al-Qur’an, narrated Anas bin Malik; tr. Muhsin Khan (full text). “So ‘Uthman sent a message to Hafsa saying, ‘Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you.’ […] ‘Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.” Sunni doctrine holds that this human transmission tracked God’s intention; the historical record describes the transmission but cannot independently verify that theological interpretation. The manuscript evidence and the Uthmanic standardisation are treated in The Historical Formation of the Hadith Corpus.
The fingerprint of a device
Argued (historical-critical). A claim of the form “X was Quran but is not in the mushaf” cannot be checked against the canonical text, because absence is part of the claim. It could in principle receive independent support from an early manuscript, inscription, or documentary witness. No such independent corroboration appears in the material reviewed here; the case rests on transmitted reports. Umar’s public, uncontradicted statement raises the report’s authority within the system, but it does not turn that testimony into direct textual verification.
Argued. Recitation-only abrogation changes no ruling; its direct legal effect is nil while its textual effect is removal from recitation. The tradition reports other rationales for that removal, so describing convenience as the doctrine’s purpose would overstate. The criticism that remains is functional: here the doctrine preserves a ruling while making the missing text unavailable for comparison.
The classical discussions state two rationales for the category. The withdrawal is a trial of submission — the community acts on a ruling whose wording God withdrew, obedience without the text in hand, on the model of Ibrahim commanded through a dream to sacrifice his son — and the Quran’s devotional function, as recitation, is distinct from its legislative function, so the two may be withdrawn separately.
Argued. The stated rationales explain withdrawal-with-ruling as a category without independently verifying its principal application. The category’s leading example is the capital ruling required by classical law whose reported Quranic wording is absent from the codex. A trial of submission could apply to any ruling; here it applies precisely where transmitted law and the extant text diverge. That functional fit explains the doctrine’s usefulness without proving that convenience caused its development.
Reported. The suspicion was not confined to outsiders: some classical scholars, Mu’tazili voices among them, rejected naskh al-tilawa outright. And the situation it licenses is the very one Umar dreaded: people denying that a verse was ever in the Book.
Primary. The device must also be reused. The same wedge services Aisha’s report that the five-sucklings verse was still being recited as Quran at the Prophet’s death (Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Rada’a);7 Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Rada’a; tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui (full text); a stray comma in the published text is corrected. “‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that it had been revealed in the Holy Qur’an that ten clear sucklings make the marriage unlawful, then it was abrogated (and substituted) by five sucklings and Allah’s Apostle died and it was before that time (found) in the Holy Qur’an (and recited by the Muslims).” Abu Musa’s report of a chapter resembling Bara’a in length and severity (Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Zakat);8 Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Zakat; tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui (full text). Abu Musa al-Ash’ari, addressing the reciters of Basra: “We used to recite a surah which resembled in length and severity to (Surah) Bara’at. I have, however, forgotten it with the exception of this which I remember out of it: ‘If there were two valleys full of riches, for the son of Adam, he would long for a third valley, and nothing would fill the stomach of the son of Adam but dust.’” the reports that Surat al-Ahzab was once the length of al-Baqara; Ibn Mas’ud’s codex lacking al-Fatiha and the last two suras; and Ubayy’s extra suras. (A separate report, the sheet under Aisha’s bed eaten by a domestic animal, circulates widely in this connection, but it sits outside the Sahihayn, in Ibn Majah and Musnad Ahmad, and carries less weight. The case does not need it.) Each invocation of the doctrine further erodes the simple picture — nothing added, nothing lost — that the doctrine exists to advertise. The variant-codex record is catalogued in the critical reference document, item 1.
Verdict
The stoning verse forces a distinction between two preservation claims. Accepting naskh al-tilawa preserves the intended final recitation and excludes post-prophetic alteration, but it gives up the stronger claim that every wording once revealed remains in the codex. Rejecting the stoning-verse reports would preserve that stronger claim at the cost of declaring reports in both Sahihs false; the stoning ruling would retain its grounding in the practice reports and the Ubada hadith but lose the Quranic pedigree claimed for it. What cannot be held together is the every-word-retained formulation and the reports of deliberately withdrawn Quranic wording.
What the texts support is this: the doctrine is coherent, and its preservation claim remains meaningful, but it is not the popular every-word-retained claim. This pattern — a strong formulation narrowed in response to counterevidence — is examined at Why every answer sounds convincing but resolves nothing.
Full treatments: Kufr, Apostasy, and the Operational Inversion of Qur’an and Sunna, §6 · Qadar and the Pattern of Theological Relabeling — naskh al-tilawa case study · How this site works