whether the elderly person had previously been married or was a virgin, whereas the established ruling is contingent upon having been previously married, whether the person is elderly or young.

It is not important for us to know its exact wording, so long as Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, testified to it from the pulpit of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, were listening and raised no objection. We therefore know that this text once existed and was then abrogated.

If someone were to ask, “What is the wisdom behind the abrogation of its wording while its meaning remained?”

The answer is: Allah knows best, but perhaps the wisdom is that when this ummah implements stoning—despite there being no explicit text for it in the Quran—it serves as proof of its nobility and merit, in contrast to the Jews, for whom stoning was explicitly prescribed in their Book, yet they abandoned acting upon it.

Allah knows best whether there is another wisdom, but this is what we have concluded.

The apparent meaning of the author’s words is that stoning is not preceded by flogging; rather, the offender is stoned without first being flogged. The scholars differed over this issue: some held that the person is first flogged and then stoned, while others held that the person is stoned without flogging.

Those who maintained that both flogging and stoning are to be combined cited as evidence that flogging is established by the Quran, unequivocally in both wording and meaning, for every fornicator: “As for the fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them…” This is general and includes both the previously married and the unmarried.

They also cited the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “Take from me, take from me. Allah has indeed made for them a way: for the unmarried man with the unmarried woman, one hundred lashes and exile for a year;