Moses, saying, “…Moses—Is this how you find the legal penalty for an adulterer in your Book?”

He answered, “No. And had you not put me under this solemn oath, I would not have told you. We find that the punishment is stoning. But adultery became widespread among our leaders; so when we apprehended a noble we let him go, and when we apprehended someone of low status we carried out the penalty on him. We therefore said, ‘Come, let us agree on a single punishment that we can apply to both the highborn and the lowly.’ So we replaced stoning with blackening the face and flogging.”

The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—then declared, “O Allah, I am the first to revive Your command after they caused it to die,” and he ordered that the man be stoned, and he was stoned.

Thereafter Allah the Exalted revealed:
“O Messenger, let not those who vie with one another in disbelief grieve you—those who say, ‘We believe,’ with their mouths…” (al-Māʾidah 5:41)

…down to His words: “…such are the unbelievers… the wrongdoers… the transgressors.” He said, “All these verses concern disbelievers.”

In Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim it is also reported from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh—may Allah be pleased with him—that he said: “The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—stoned a man from the tribe of Aslam and a man….”