JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

152
Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 11 (2011)
category of sexual offenders (clause 3). Thus he establishes a
hierarchical relationship between the case of the adulterers (Qurʾān
4:15), the abrogating verse (Qurʾān 24:2) and the abrogating sunna,
which imposes on the adulterers the dual penalty of flogging and
stoning.
While referring to the sunna, Muqātil disregards the ensuing notion
that the prophetic practice now abrogates the scriptural ordinance, which,
it should be recalled, does not mention stoning. Nor does he consider
explicitly the possibility of a single penalty for adultery.
The halakhic ending of Muqātil’s commentary ad Qurʾān 4:15–6 and
the contradictory relationship between Qurʾān 4:15–6 from one side and
Qurʾān 24:2 from another side most likely signal editorial intrusions in
the original narrative. The paraphrastic exposition at the beginning of the
commentary reflects an early stage of exegetic development, but is not
free from apparent interventions. Most notably, the identification of the
pronominal subjects in Qurʾān 4:15 as female adulterers, and in Qurʾān
4:16 as fornicators from both sexes is a result of a development that
postdates Muqātil by at least a century. 28 The multiple levels of takhṣīṣ
and the discussion of naskh also seem foreign to what would have been
Muqātil’s original narrative.
In his treatise on abrogation (al-Nāsikh wa-l-Mansūkh) Abū ʿUbayd
(d. 224/839) adduces a number of traditions treating the abrogation of
Qurʾān 4:15–16. He opens the chapter Al-ḥudūd wa-mā nusikha min-hā
with two Companion traditions attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās. 29 Unlike the
halakhic parts of Muqātil’s commentary, the Ibn ʿAbbās traditions do not
specify the pronominal subjects in Qurʾān 4:15 and 4:16 as respectively
adulterers and fornicators. Nor do they translate al-zānī and al-zāniya in
Qurʾān 24:2 as bikrayni. The only notable distinction is drawn between
female and male offenders (al-marʾa; al-rajul) as clearly indicated by
the specific pronominal and verbal forms.
Like Muqātil, Abū ʿUbayd first points out that Qurʾān 24:2 abrogates
both Qurʾān 4:15 and 4:16, and then resorts to the prophetic sunna to
specify the punishment for adultery. In his commentary ad Qurʾān 24:2,
Ibn ʿAbbās has reportedly expressed the opinion that the sunna provides
a legal basis for the stoning of adulterers (wa-in kānā muḥṣanayni rujimā
28 To the best of my knowledge, this distinction will not recur in the exegesis of
Qurʾān 4:15–6 before the Tafsīr of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/922) (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, 6:493,
499–500).
29 Abū ʿUbayd, al-Nāsikh wa-l-Mansūkh, ed. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-Mudayfir
(Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1411/1990), 132, nos. 238–9.