Once the caller to the prayers finished calling the adhān ...

Once the caller to the prayers finished calling the adhān , ‘Umar stood up then sat on the pulpit. He praised Allāh as He deserves then said, ‘Having said what I have said, I am going to make a statement which I am destined to say. I do not know; perhaps I am saying it before my demise. Anyone who understands it and who realizes its significance should disseminate it wherever his destination may be. And if one is afraid he will not realize it, I do not permit him to tell a lie about me.

Allāh sent Muhammad (ṣ) with the truth. He revealed the Book to him. Among what Allāh revealed was Ayat al-Rajm [the verse of stoning], so we recited it, understood it and absorbed it. The Messenger of Allāh (ṣ) stoned, and we stoned after him. I am afraid if a long period of time passes by, someone may say, ‘By Allāh we do not find the verse of stoning in the Book of Allāh.’ They will thus go astray by abandoning an obligation mandated by Allāh.

Stoning in the Book of Allāh is right against married men or women once the evidence is established, or when there is a pregnancy, or when one confesses it.”[^8] The other narrative, which is also recorded by al-Bukhāri, explains that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattāb wished to add that verse which he, according to his claim, was dropped by himself, but he was afraid of what people might say: “‘Umar said, ‘Had it not been for the possibility that people may say that ‘Umar increased the text of the Book of Allāh, I would have written the verse of stoning with my own hand and thus back what instruction the Prophet (ṣ) had had regarding stoning an adulterer in the presence of four witnesses.’”[^9] As for this alleged “verse,” it supposedly says the following: “As for the mid-aged [sheikh] man or woman, if he or she commits adultery, you should absolutely stone them.”[^10] Ibn Mājah, too, has narrated the same in his Sahīh .

Since we unequivocally believe that the Qur’ān in our hands has never suffered any diminution or addition, caliph ‘Umar must have been confused, and the source of this confusion may be the existence of the stoning verse not in the Holy Qur’ān but in the Torah of the People of the Book as this becomes evident from the narrative of Ibn ‘Umar who says, “A Jew and a Jewess who had committed adultery were both brought to the Prophet (ṣ).