it is very weak indeed. For this is mentioned only in connection with witnessing a transaction, not adjudicating on the basis of testimony. Even if it concerned adjudication, judgment based on testimony alone would not require this. When an oath is sworn alongside a witness, the judgment is not based on testimony other than that mentioned in the Quran. Moreover, the imams agree that judgment may be given without any testimony at all, merely on the basis of refusing to swear an oath or referring the oath back to the claimant. They also agree that, in certain cases, judgment may be based on the testimony of women alone. How, then, are such judgments given without this being contrary to the Quran? What, then, of an oath alongside a witness?

Mālik requires retaliatory execution on the basis of qasāma and imposes the prescribed punishment on a woman if her husband takes the oaths of imprecation but she does not. Al-Shāfi‘ī imposes the prescribed punishment but does not authorize execution on the basis of qasāma. Abū Hanīfa disagrees on both issues. Ahmad agrees regarding retaliatory execution on the basis of qasāma, but not regarding the prescribed punishment for the woman; rather, he detains her if she does not take the oaths of imprecation, and releases her. The apparent meaning of the Quran and Sunnah supports Mālik’s position.

Another example is that the scholars of Medina hold that both the active and passive participants in sodomy are to be executed, whether muhsan or otherwise. This is what the Sunnah and the agreement of the Companions indicate, and it is one of the two positions within the schools of al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad. Those Kufans who hold that no execution is due have neither Sunnah nor any report from the Companions to support them. Rabī‘a said to the Kufan who debated him: “Can what is never lawful be treated like what is permissible in some circumstances