Whoever excluded women from the general wording has done so only by analogy, reasoning that exile exposes a woman to even greater temptation toward fornication. This is an instance of unrestricted, benefit-based qiyās—the very type that Mālik often employs.

The Ḥanafīs, by contrast, rely on the outward sense of the Qur’an. Their stance is grounded in their principle that adding anything to a revealed text constitutes abrogation, and that the Book cannot be abrogated by solitary reports. They further narrate from ʿUmar and others that he enforced the ḥadd without banishment, whereas the Kufans transmit from Abū Bakr and ʿUmar that they did order banishment.

Regarding slaves who fall into this offense, they are of two kinds: male and female. As for female slaves, the scholars are unanimously agreed that if a slave-woman is married and then commits zinā, her ḥadd is fifty lashes, in accord with the verse:

“When they are sheltered in marriage, then if they commit an indecency, their punishment shall be half that of free married women” (Q 4:25).

They disagreed, however, when she is not married. The majority of the jurists of the various cities say her penalty is still fifty lashes. Another group holds that there is no ḥadd on her at all, only discretionary punishment (taʿzīr); this is related from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. Yet others maintain that a slave-woman is never subject to the ḥadd.

The root of their divergence lies in the ambiguity of the term iḥṣān in the same verse. Those who take iḥṣān to mean marriage—and argue by implication (dalīl al-khiṭāb)—say the unmarried slave-woman is not to be flogged, whereas those who interpret iḥṣān as Islam treat the ruling as applying to both the married and the unmarried.

Those who deny a ḥadd for the unmarried slave-woman cite the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah and Zayd ibn Khālid al-Juhanī: “The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—was asked about a slave-woman who had committed zinā while not muḥṣan. He said, ‘If she commits zinā, flog her; if she commits zinā again, flog her; and if she commits zinā yet again, sell her even for a single rope.’”

As for male slaves, the jurists of the various regions hold that the slave’s ḥadd is half that of a free man, drawing an analogy with the female slave. The Ẓāhirīs, however, say his penalty is one hundred lashes, clinging to the general wording of the verse, “Flog each of the two of them a hundred lashes” (Q 24:2), which makes no distinction between slave and freeman. A few scholars—even more rarely—have suspended the ḥadd altogether by analogy with the slave-woman; this anomalous view is related from Ibn ʿAbbās.

Thus far we have discussed the various kinds of ḥudūd, the categories of those liable to them, and the conditions that make each person subject to them. What remains is the manner and timing of their execution.

Concerning the manner, one of the well-known practical questions is whether a pit should be dug for the person to be stoned. One group says that a pit is indeed dug; this is narrated from ʿAlī regarding Shurāḥah al-Hamadāniyyah when he ordered her stoning, and it is also the view of Abū Thawr. The report states: “When Friday came he brought her out, dug a pit for her, placed her in it, and the people encircled her …”