His saying:

“The elderly man and the elderly woman, if they commit unlawful sexual intercourse, stone them without fail as a punishment from Allah. And Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.”

Stoning has been established by the mass-transmitted Sunnah and the consensus of the Companions.

This answers the claim that His saying,

“Those of your women who commit unlawful sexual intercourse,”

and the remainder of the verse have been abrogated. For even if this is assumed to have been abrogated, it was abrogated by a Quranic passage revealed afterward. Its wording was subsequently abrogated, while its ruling remained, conveyed through mass transmission. This is not a point of dispute.

Al-Shāfiʿī, Ahmad, and the other imams require adherence to the firmly established, mass-transmitted Sunnah, even when it entails the abrogation of some Quranic verses. They maintain, however, that the Quran was abrogated only by the Quran, not by the Sunnah alone. They cite as evidence His saying, Exalted is He:

“Whatever verse We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it.”

They regard Allah’s abrogating the Quran only through Quranic revelation as part of the full reverence accorded to it.