alleged (1) any circumstance casting doubt on the cause of the pregnancy; according to (2) Ahmad and others, there are two opinions regarding her. One view holds (3) that she is not subject to the prescribed punishment, because she may have become pregnant through coercion, through the introduction of semen (4), or through intercourse mistakenly believed to be lawful. The other view holds that she is subject to the prescribed punishment. This is the position transmitted from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, is more consistent with the principles of the Sharia, and is the position of the scholars of Medina. Rare possibilities are disregarded, just as one disregards the possibility that she is lying or that the witnesses are lying.
As for sodomy between men, some scholars hold that its prescribed punishment is the same as that for one who commits unlawful sexual intercourse (5), while a lesser punishment has also been advocated. The correct view, upon which the Companions agreed, is that both the active and passive partners are to be put to death, whether or not they possessed the status described above (6).
The compilers of the Sunan works narrated from Ibn Abbas that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “Whoever you find doing what (7) the people of Lot did, put both the doer and the one to whom it is done to death” (8).
(1) (Y) reads: *yak* (“there was”); (B): *yakun* (“there was”).
(2) The remaining manuscripts read: “in the school of,” in place of “according to.”
(3) The original manuscript reads: “And it is said.”
(4) The original manuscript reads: *ihtamalat mukrahatan aw tatahammal*; (L) reads: “she may have been coerced.” The reading adopted in the text is from the remaining manuscripts. Its meaning is explained in *al-Mughnī* (12/377): “A woman may become pregnant without intercourse if a man’s semen enters her vagina, whether through her own action or someone else’s. Hence, pregnancy in a virgin is conceivable and has indeed occurred.” See *Sharh al-Uthaymīn* (p. 296).
(5) (F) reads: “unlawful sexual intercourse.”
(6) The author of *al-Mughnī* reports their consensus (12/350); they differed only over the manner of execution.
(7) (Y, Z, Ẓ, B) read: “committing the deed of.”
(8) Narrated by Ahmad (2732), Abū Dāwūd (4462), al-Tirmidhī (1456), Ibn Mājah (2561), al-Dāraqutnī (3/124), al-Hākim (4/355), and al-Bayhaqī (8/231–232), through several chains from Ikrimah, from Ibn Abbās—may Allah be pleased with them both. Al-Hāfiz related that al-Nasā’ī regarded the hadith as objectionable. Al-Tirmidhī asked al-Bukhārī about it, and he replied: “Amr ibn Abī Amr—the narrator from Ikrimah—is truthful, but he narrated objectionable reports from Ikrimah and did not state in any of them that he had heard directly from Ikrimah.” *Al-Ilal al-Kabīr* (251). Al-Hākim authenticated its chain of transmission.