fa-khabutha bi-ʾammah: from the verb khabatha, yakhbuthu, khubthan (conjugated like qatala), meaning: he committed fornication with a slave-woman.

ʿithkālan: pronounced with a kasrah on the ʿayn and a silent thāʾ, rhyming with “qirṭās”; it refers to the cluster of a date-palm, or the cluster whose stalk carries fine offshoots.

shimrākh: written with shīn, followed by a quiescent mīm, then rāʾ, then alif, and ending with a dotted khāʾ; it is a slender twig at the base of the ʿithkāl; plural shimārikh.

Lessons drawn from the ḥadith

1 – The prescribed penalty (ḥadd) for an unmarried fornicator is one hundred lashes, in accordance with the verse: “The woman and the man guilty of fornication—flog each of them with a hundred lashes” (Q 24:2).
As for banishing an unmarried fornicator for a year, this is established in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from the ḥadith of ʿUbādah b. al-Ṣāmit: “The virgin for the virgin: one hundred lashes and exile for a year.”

2 – It proves that the ruler must monitor the condition of the person being flogged, protecting his life and preventing the penalty from becoming excessive.

3 – A ḥadd is not deferred on account of illness except for the time needed for recovery, or when carrying it out would harm someone other than the offender—such as a pregnant woman, as in the story of the Ghāmidiyyah.

4 – The penalty must still be executed on a physically weak offender, but only to the extent he can endure. When the Prophet ﷺ was told of the frailty of the “little man” who had fornicated, he ordered them to strike him once with a palm cluster containing one hundred thin twigs, thereby preserving the outward form of Allah’s prescribed limit as far as possible. This shows that for the sick, the elderly, or anyone unable to bear the usual method, the punishment may be delivered in a single blow he can withstand.

Ibn Kathīr said: Job (peace be upon him) became angry with his wife and swore that, if Allah healed him, he would strike her with a hundred lashes. When Allah did heal him, Allah said to him: