The first view is that both the judge and the governor may administer beatings in such cases. This is the position of a group of scholars among Mālik’s followers and others, including Ashhab, the judge of Egypt. Ashhab said: “He is to be questioned through imprisonment and disciplinary punishment, and flogged with his body bared.”

The second view is that he should not be beaten, but detained, as discussed above. This is the position of Asbagh, one of Mālik’s followers, and of many Hanafī, Shāfiʿī and other scholars. However, they regard the detention of such an accused person as more stringent than that of someone whose character is unknown. They therefore differed over whether he should be detained until he dies. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and a group of Mālik’s followers, including Mutarrif, Ibn al-Mājishūn and others, held that he should be detained until he dies.

Likewise, it is reported from Imam Ahmad that someone who does not desist from his religious innovation should be detained until he dies. Mālik, however, said: “He should not be detained until he dies.”

The third view is that the governor may beat him, but not the judge. This view was mentioned by a group of Shāfiʿī’s and Ahmad’s followers, including Judge Abū al-Hasan al-Māwardī, Judge Abū Yaʿlā and others. They discussed it at length in their works on the ordinances of government. They said that military authority is the mainstay for punishing crimes and preventing corruption in the land, and that this cannot be accomplished without punishing suspects known for criminal conduct. Judicial authority, by contrast, can achieve its purpose without this.

This view thus affirms that such measures are permissible under the religious law. Each officeholder, however, is instructed to carry out what has been entrusted to him. Thus, just as the official responsible for alms does not have the same powers of collection and disbursement as the official responsible for