an eater; a husband marries only a wife, and a wife is married only by a husband.” Such language is unworthy of the speech of Allah.

Fourth, a man may force a woman to have intercourse with him, making him guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse without her being guilty of it. Likewise, a woman may commit unlawful sexual intercourse with a man who is asleep or under coercion, according to one of the two views, without his being guilty of it.

Fifth, the Muslims already knew that unlawful sexual intercourse was forbidden through verses revealed in Mecca. Its prohibition was too widely known for this verse to have been revealed to prohibit it.

Sixth, Allah says:

“She is married only by a man who commits unlawful sexual intercourse or an idolater.”

If sexual intercourse were intended, there would be no need to mention the idolater, since he would himself be committing unlawful sexual intercourse. Likewise, if a man has unlawful sexual intercourse with an idolatress, she too is guilty of it. There would therefore be no need for this distinction.

Seventh, Allah had already said:

“As for the woman and the man who commit unlawful sexual intercourse, flog each of them a hundred lashes.”

What need would there then be to mention the prohibition of unlawful sexual intercourse after that?

As for abrogation, Sa‘īd ibn al-Musayyab and a group of scholars said that this verse was abrogated by His words:

“Marry off the unmarried among you.”

When the proponents of this view realized that the claim of abrogation by this verse was very weak, and could find nothing to abrogate it, they assumed that no one had upheld its ruling and said, “It has been abrogated by consensus,” as Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī and others claimed. As for