1089 – Abu Burdah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “No one is to be flogged with more than ten lashes except in a ḥadd, one of the prescribed punishments of Allah, the Exalted.” Agreed upon. (1)

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• “is not to be flogged” (lā yujlad): to strike a person’s skin; the Arabic root denotes hitting the outer covering of the body with a whip, sword, or the like.
• “lashes” (aswāṭ, sing. sawṭ): a whip fashioned from leather, whether braided or not, used for striking.
• “except in a ḥadd”: linguistically ḥadd means “to prevent” or “to set a limit.” In the Qurʾanic and legal sense it can refer to (a) the things Allah has forbidden, (b) the rulings He has precisely fixed, or (c) the fixed penal sanctions whose very precision deters people from falling into the same sin. Any of these meanings is possible here, because all are divinely determined and admit neither increase nor decrease.

Points derived from the ḥadith

1. Women, children, servants, and similar dependents must be educated and morally refined by those in charge of them through guidance, instruction, advice, and the guardian’s own good example, for “each of you is a shepherd and each of you will be questioned about his flock.”
2. If guidance and teaching, followed—when necessary—by warning and intimidation prove ineffective, then there is no objection to disciplining them by means of a measured physical punishment,