Abu Dawud—and others as well—also transmits, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), that he said:

“A Jewish man committed adultery with a woman. Some of them said to the others, ‘Let us go to this Prophet, for he is a prophet who has been sent with leniency. If he issues for us a ruling that falls short of stoning, we will accept it and invoke it before Allah, saying, “It came from one of Your prophets.”’

They therefore came to the Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—while he was sitting in the mosque among his Companions and said, ‘Abu’l-Qasim, what is your judgment concerning a man and a woman from among us who have committed adultery?’

He did not answer them at all until he reached their Bayt al-Midras (schoolhouse). There he stood at the door and said, ‘I adjure you by Allah who revealed the Torah to Moses: what do you find in the Torah regarding the punishment for a married adulterer?’

They replied, ‘We blacken his face, disgrace him publicly, and flog him; and tagbiya is to mount the two adulterers on a donkey, back-to-back, and parade them around.’

A young man among them kept silent. When the Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—noticed his silence, he placed him under oath, whereupon the youth said, ‘O Allah, now that you have made us swear, we do indeed find in the Torah the penalty of stoning.’

The Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—then asked, ‘So what was the first thing that led you to relax Allah’s command?’

He replied, ‘A relative of one of our kings committed adultery, so the king delayed carrying out the stoning; then a man from an ordinary family committed adultery—’