They said: This is because Allah pelted the people of Lot with stones, and prescribed stoning for the adulterer by analogy with the stoning of the people of Lot. Both men are to be stoned, whether they are both free, both enslaved, or one is owned by the other (1), provided that they have both reached adulthood. If either of them has not reached adulthood, he is to receive a punishment short of death, for only an adult is to be stoned.
Section
As for the prescribed punishment for drinking intoxicants, it is established by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and the consensus of the Muslims. The compilers of the Sunan collections narrated through several routes that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said: “Whoever drinks wine, flog him. If he drinks again, flog him. If he drinks again, flog him (2). Then, if he drinks a fourth time, put him to death” (3).
(1) (Y, Ẓ, B, L) read: “one is enslaved and the other free.”
(2) The third occurrence of “Then, if he drinks, flog him” is absent from the other manuscripts. (L) reads: “Then, up to the fourth time; if he drinks a fourth time…”
(3) This hadith was narrated from several Companions. Ahmad (16847), Abū Dāwūd (4482), al-Tirmidhī (1444), al-Nasā’ī in *al-Sunan al-Kubrā* (5279), Ibn Mājah (2573), and al-Hākim (4/372) narrated it from Mu'āwiyah—may Allah be pleased with him.
Ahmad (7762), Abū Dāwūd (4484), al-Nasā’ī (5662), Ibn Mājah (2572), al-Hākim (4/371), al-Bayhaqī (8/313), and others also narrated it through Abū Salamah ibn Abd al-Rahmān, from Abū Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him. Its chain of transmission is weak.
It was also narrated from Ibn Umar, Qabīsah ibn Dhu’ayb, Jābir, al-Sharīd, Abū Sa’īd al-Khudrī, Abd Allah ibn Amr, Jarīr, Ibn Mas’ūd, Shurahbīl ibn Aws, and Ghutayf.
After relating the hadith of Mu'āwiyah, al-Tirmidhī said: “Al-Zuhrī narrated from Qabīsah ibn Dhu’ayb, from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—a similar report. He said: ‘The death penalty was then waived, and this was a dispensation.’ The general body of scholars act upon this hadith, and we know of no disagreement among earlier or later scholars concerning it. This is further supported by what has been narrated through numerous routes from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace: ‘It is not lawful to shed the blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah, except in one of three cases: a life for a life, a previously married adulterer, or one who abandons his religion.’”
Shaykh Ahmad Shākir provides an extensive discussion of executing a person for drinking wine a fourth time in *Sharh al-Musnad* (9/40–70).