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From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Where was stoning prescribed for Muslims? (Adultery)
Summary: There were at least three cases of stoning in the Prophet's life
Message-ID: <1990Aug6.110308.14103@laguna.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Date: 6 Aug 90 11:03:08 GMT
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Organization: California Institute of Technology
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>I don't believe you will find any reference to the Prophet prescibing
>stoning for Muslims. 

>If someone can find a particular author who can pinpoint, Chapter and
>Verse, in the ahadith of Bukhari and/or Muslim about stoning being
>prescribed for Muslims I'd appreciate hearing about it!

     Please look in the place one would normally look in when looking for
hadiths on "hudud": Kitab al-Hudud.  Both Bukhari and Muslim, and just about
any other hadith book you open, will have mention of the hadith of the
stoning of Ma'iz al-Aslami, that of the "Ghamidi woman" (al-ghadmidiyya),
that of the woman from the Juhayna tribe ("al-juhaniyya").  I think there
is one more instance which involve Anas b. Malik being sent as a messenger...
(hadith starts: ughdu ya unays, ila imra'ati hadha...).  In any case, the
first three hadiths ARE in both Bukhari and Muslim.

     By the way, this requirement that a hadith be "in Bukhari or Muslim"
is a very uncritical one.  To judge the authenticity of a hadith it is the
isnad that counts.  And, yes, it does take a little (<-understatement) 
training to gain the ability to weigh an isnad.  Nevertheless, one can
hobble along using crutches of classical scholarship until one's own feet
are strong enough to walk on:  look in Fath al-Bari or in Talkhis al-Habir
of Ibn Hajar, or in Nasb al-Ra'ya of Zayla'i in the sections on Hudud
and you will find tons of hadiths.  Now, it often happens that you will
find a hadith reference in one of these classical collections which is
being related on an isnad which is identical to one in Bukhari or Muslim,
and which contains no additional problems--it just so happens that 
neither Bukhari nor Muslim chose to include it in their books.  This is
no reason for not accepting these hadiths.

      Muslim explicitly states: "Ma kullu sahihin katabtuhu fi kitabi
hadha" ("I have not recorded every authentic hadith in this book, I have
only collected what 'they' have agreed upon").  Now the "they" is vague
and is interpreted variously, but this much is clear: that a hadith is
not in Muslim does not mean it is not Sahih. [I have quoted from memory,
I might be off in a word or two...]

     In fact, Muslim's teacher, Abu Zur'ah, was dismayed when he saw 
Muslim's book!  He said that now people will say that if it is not in
Muslim's Sahih then it is not Sahih (authentic)...[This incident is
recorded in, if memory serves me, in Shurut al-a'imma al-khamsa by
al-Hazimi...]

                                            Wassalam.