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Is it true that the beginning of Surat An-Nur was abrogated with "the fornicator and the fornicatress" instead of "the old man and the old woman"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The verse of stoning, whose wording was abrogated but its ruling remained, was not in Surat An-Nur but rather in Surat Al-Ahzab. The proof for this is the saying of Ubayy ibn Ka'b, may Allah be pleased with him: "Surat Al-Ahzab used to be equivalent to Surat Al-Baqarah, and in it was [the verse]: 'The old man and the old woman, if they commit adultery, stone them definitively.'" Its ruling remains, not abrogated, as was confirmed by Umar ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, for the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, stoned, and the Companions after him also stoned. There is no contradiction between the verse of An-Nur and the verse of stoning. The verse of stoning ("The old man and the old woman...") pertains specifically to the married person (Al-Thayyib Al-Muhsan), whose ruling is stoning, whereas the verse of An-Nur is for the virgin (Al-Bakr), whose ruling is one hundred lashes along with exile. It abrogated the two verses of confinement and harm in Surat An-Nisa.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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