whom he believes to be his wife; or has relations with her on the basis of an invalid marriage contract that he thinks is sound; or does so under a contract whose validity is disputed among the jurists; or he is ignorant of the prohibition of fornication because he has only recently embraced Islam, or was raised in a remote desert far from Muslim lands; or if the woman herself was forced into the act.

Ibn al-Mundhir said, “Everyone among the scholars whose views we have preserved is agreed that the prescribed penalties are set aside whenever there is a legal doubt….” End of quote.

This is part of the ease built into the Sacred Law, for the existence of a doubt indicates that the offender did not intentionally commit the crime. Allah the Exalted says, “You will not be held accountable for what you do by mistake, but only for what your hearts deliberately intend; and Allah is All-Forgiving, All-Merciful” (Quran 33:5).

Among the conditions for enforcing the ḥadd upon the adulterer is that the act of zinā be proven against him, and that can be established only in one of two ways.

First: that he confess to it four separate times. This is based on the ḥadīth of Māʿiz ibn Mālik (d. 0 AH), who acknowledged his sin before the Prophet ﷺ four times. At the first and second admission the Prophet turned him back, and only after he had completed four did he order the ḥadd; had fewer than four been sufficient, the penalty would have been carried out earlier.

For a confession of zinā to be valid, the offender must state explicitly that full intercourse took place, and he must not retract his confession before the penalty is executed. If he does not spell out the reality of the act, the ḥadd is not imposed, for he may have intended some other illicit pleasure that does not incur the prescribed penalty. Concerning this the Prophet ﷺ said to Māʿiz when he confessed, “Perhaps…"