4 – As for rajm (stoning): it is the throwing of stones at the offender until he dies.

5 – The ḥadith states that fornication is proven by three kinds of evidence:

First: the legally accountable fornicator confesses four times. In the two Ṣaḥīḥs there is the report of Maʿiz, who acknowledged before the Prophet ﷺ on four separate occasions; when he had borne witness against himself four times, the Prophet said, “Take him away and stone him.” The confession must explicitly describe the act of penetration so that all doubt is removed, and the confessor must not retract until the penalty has begun. If he recants before the stoning starts, his retraction is accepted and the punishment is cancelled.

Second: four upright male witnesses testify, describing the act as the insertion of the man’s organ into the woman’s private part.

Third: the pregnancy of a woman who has neither husband nor master. This is the plain sense of the ḥadith under discussion and one of the narrations from Imām Aḥmad, preferred by Shaykh al-Islām. He said, “It is what has been transmitted from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, it better accords with the principles of the Sharīʿah, and it is the position of the scholars of Madinah; obvious alternative possibilities are not taken into account.”

Ibn al-Qayyim said: “‘Umar ruled that a woman who became pregnant without husband or master be stoned; this is also the view of Mālik and the sounder of the two reports from Aḥmad, relying on the manifest circumstantial evidence.”

The three Imams—Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and the other narration from Aḥmad—hold that no ḥadd (prescribed legal penalty) is due, because the pregnancy might be the result of rape or doubtful intercourse. For ‘Umar was once brought a pregnant woman who claimed she had been coerced, whereupon he said, “Release her.” On another occasion a woman was brought to him who said, “I am heavy-set and did not wake until he had finished,” and he waived the ḥadd for her.

It is related from Ibn Masʿūd and others that they said, “If the ḥadd is unclear to you, avert it as far as you can.”

Al-Muwaffaq Ibn Qudāmah remarked: “There is unanimous agreement that a ḥadd is averted by doubts, and here such doubts are clearly present.” This view is stronger than the first, and Allah knows best.