26. In these two (verses 15-16)the first, preliminary directives for the
punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse are stated. The first verse deals
with women. The punishment laid down was to confine them until further directives
were revealed. The second verse (i.e. 16) relates to both sexes. The injunction
lays down that they should be punished - that is, they should be beaten and
publicly reproached. Later, another injunction was revealed see
(Surah al-Nur 24: 2) which laid down that both the male and female should be given a hundred
lashes. These injunctions are necessarily of a preliminary nature since the
people of Arabia were neither used to obeying the orders of any established
government, the verdicts of any courts of law nor to following any legal code;
it would therefore have been unwise to try to force acceptance of a penal code
upon them so soon after the establishment of the Islamic state. In due course,
the punishments for unlawful sexual intercourse, for slanderous accusations
of unchastity against women, and for theft were laid down in their definitive
form and served as the basis of that detailed penal code which was enforced
by the Prophet (peace be on him) and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs.
The apparent difference between the contents of the two verses led al-Suddi
to the misconceived belief that the first verse lays down the punishment for
married women, and the second that for unmarried men and women. This is a tenuous
explanation unsupported by any serious evidence and argument. Even less convincing
is the opinion expressed by Abu Muslim al-Isfahani that the first verse relates
to lesbian relations between females, and the second to homosexual relations
between males. It is strange that al-Isfahani ignored the basic fact that the
Qur'an seeks merely to chart a broad code of law and morality and hence deals
only with fundamental questions. It is inconsistent with the majestic style
of the Qur'an to discuss secondary details which have been left to people to
decide through the exercise of their legal judgement. It is for this reason
that when the problem of fixing a punishment for sodomy came up for consideration
after the time of the Prophet (peace be on him), none of the Companions thought
that the above-mentioned verse contained any relevant injunction.