women (1): when it was reported that a group among the people of Medina permitted this, and two reports concerning it were attributed to Mālik, an ignorant person assumed that the same applied to the anuses of male slaves.

This would be one of the gravest misattributions even against someone (2) of lesser standing than Mālik; how much more egregious is it against Mālik, given his eminent stature, the excellence of his school, his complete abstention from indecencies, his rulings based on blocking the means to wrongdoing, and the fact that his school is among the most rigorous in enforcing prescribed penalties and prohibiting evil acts and innovations (3).

There is no disagreement within Mālik’s school that anyone who deems sexual intercourse with male slaves lawful falls into unbelief. This is likewise the position of all the leading Muslim scholars. They unanimously agree that deeming this lawful is equivalent to deeming it lawful to have intercourse with one’s female slave when she is one’s daughter through nursing, one’s sister through nursing, or a woman with whom one’s son or father has had intercourse. Just as his female slave, when forbidden to him through nursing or affinity, does not become lawful for him by unanimous Muslim agreement, his male slave is all the more strictly forbidden. This form of intercourse is absolutely forbidden (4): it cannot be made lawful through either a marriage contract or ownership of a slave, unlike intercourse with females.

Accordingly, the position of Mālik and the scholars of Medina is that one who commits sodomy (5) is to be put to death by stoning,