Our teacher, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Saʿdī—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “The sound position is that it is permissible to go beyond ten lashes in a discretionary punishment (taʿzīr) when benefit and deterrence so require.” These, then, are the statements and views of the imams concerning taʿzīr, may Allah have mercy on them all.

As for the Prophet’s saying (peace and blessings be upon him), “No one is to be flogged more than ten lashes except in one of the prescribed penalties of Allah,” what is meant is a sin. The ruling that the number must not be exceeded applies only to disciplining a minor, a wife, a servant, and the like in matters that do not amount to sin.

Benefits transmitted from Shaykh al-Islām:

1. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb would repeat the taʿzīr for a single act if it involved several prohibited elements: he would administer one hundred lashes on the first day, one hundred on the second, and one hundred on the third, spacing the punishment so that no limb would be ruined.

2. Anyone who owns male or female slaves is obliged to command them to do what is right and forbid them from what is wrong. If he is able to punish them, he should discipline them when they neglect obligatory duties or commit prohibitions.

3. Masturbation by hand is forbidden according to the majority of scholars; this is the sounder of the two opinions in Aḥmad’s school. According to the other view it is disliked but not forbidden, and most scholars allow it only out of fear of unbearable hardship. A group of Companions and Successors granted a concession in cases of necessity—such as when a person fears falling into fornication and cannot protect himself except by it, or when refraining from it would make him ill. This is also the view of Aḥmad and others. Without such necessity, however, I know of no one who permitted it. Allah knows best.