“He inflicted forty lashes for wine drinking.” This is likewise transmitted by ʿAlī from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—through a sounder chain, and it is the view adopted by al-Shāfiʿī.

Who carries out the ḥadd
The jurists agree that the imam is the one who enforces this ḥadd, as with all other ḥudūd. They differ, however, over whether masters may apply the ḥudūd to their own slaves.

• Mālik said: A master may inflict the ḥadd for fornication and for slander on his slave when witnesses testify before him; he may not do so on the basis of his own knowledge, and only the imam may amputate for theft. Al-Layth held the same opinion.

• Abū Ḥanīfah said: No one applies the ḥudūd to slaves except the imam.

• Al-Shāfiʿī said: The master may carry out all the ḥudūd on his slave; this is also the position of Aḥmad, Isḥāq, and Abū Thawr.

Mālik’s principal proof is the well-known ḥadīth:
“ The Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was asked about a slave-girl who commits fornication without having been previously married. He said, ‘If she fornicates, flog her; if she fornicates again, flog her; if she fornicates again, flog her, then sell her even for a rope of hair.’ ”
He also cited the Prophet’s statement, “If the slave-girl of any one of you commits fornication, let him flog her.”

Al-Shāfiʿī, in addition to these traditions, relied on the report in which the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:
“Carry out the ḥudūd on those whom your right hands possess,”
and on the fact that the same ruling is related from a group of Companions with no dissent—among them Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn Masʿūd, and Anas.

Abū Ḥanīfah’s chief argument is the consensus that the original authority for executing the ḥudūd lies with the ruler. It is also narrated from al-Ḥasan, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and others that they said, “The Friday prayer, zakāt, fayʾ, and judgment belong to the ruler.”

Section
Evidentiary basis
The scholars concur that this ḥadd is established by confession or by the testimony of two upright witnesses. They disagree, however, about establishing it through odor.

Mālik, his companions, and the majority of the scholars of the Ḥijāz hold that the ḥadd becomes obligatory on the basis of odor when two upright witnesses attest to it before the judge. Al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, the majority of the Iraqi scholars, a group of Ḥijāz scholars, and most of the scholars of Baṣrah maintain that the ḥadd is not established by odor.

Those who accept testimony based on odor liken it to testimony based on voice or handwriting; those who reject it point to the confusion of scents—while the ḥadd is averted in cases of doubt.