to be mistaken about himself and think that he committed zina when he did not?! This is impossible. Likewise, the witnesses may not be mistaken, but they may be acting wrongfully: they may wish to entrap the person testified against, so they testify that he committed zina when he did not commit it at all. This is possible. But for a person to wrong himself is far-fetched; it is far-fetched that he would testify against himself, stain his own reputation with zina, and accept punishment while lying. This is among the most unlikely of things.

Yet it is possible for witnesses to lie: they may lie and give testimony, then later regret it and say, “How could we testify, stain his honor, and expose him to punishment—perhaps even stoning?” So they retract their testimony. To analogize one case to the other is therefore exceedingly far-fetched.

As for their statement that the underlying rationale requires it—how can we carry out the prescribed punishment upon a man who is crying out at the top of his voice that he did not do it?!

We say: We have not wronged him; we carried out the prescribed punishment upon him on the basis of his confession. That he is lying in retracting it is more likely than that he was lying in making the confession, for it is far-fetched that a person would confess against himself that he committed zina when he did not. But it is quite likely that he would retract his confession when he sees that the prescribed punishment is about to be carried out upon him after he has confessed.

As for the judgments of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, I have not examined their texts. Perhaps there were cases resembling what happened with Ma'iz, and they ruled accordingly; then the scholars who hold this view assumed that these fell under the heading of retracting a confession, whereas they were not so. Therefore, we need to examine the reports transmitted from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, for differing from them is no trivial matter, and we regard our own opinion with suspicion when set against their view. However, in terms of examining the evidence, there is no doubt that the preponderant view is that of the Zahiriyyah.