Hadith 3605

(1) The statement: I do not know whether the prescribed punishments are expiations for their people or not: The scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, differed on whether purification from sin is among the rulings of the prescribed punishment without repentance. Many scholars, including the Shafi’is, held this view. Our companions held that it is not among the rulings of the prescribed punishment. If the punishment is enforced on him and he does not repent, the sin of that disobedience does not fall from him, and he is not purified without repentance according to us, meaning the punishment is not a purifier according to us, but the purifier is repentance. This is based on these narrations and the verse on highway robbers, as He, the Exalted, said: That is for them disgrace in this world, and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment, except for those who repent [al-Ma’ida: 33-34]. The demonstrative pronoun refers to killing, crucifixion, or exile. Allah combined worldly and hereafter punishment for them and dropped the hereafter punishment with repentance, as the exception refers to it, due to the consensus that repentance does not drop the prescribed punishment in this world. As for what al-Bukhari and others narrated authentically: If one commits any of these sins and is punished for it in this world, it is an expiation for him. If one commits any of them and Allah conceals it, it is up to Allah; if He wills, He forgives him, and if He wills, He punishes him. This must be understood as applying when he repents during the punishment, as this is apparent, because it is apparent that his beating or stoning is accompanied by his repentance due to experiencing the cause of his action, so it is qualified by this to reconcile the evidence. Qualifying the speculative with the definitive opposing it is necessary, unlike the reverse. [As in Fath al-Qadir.] Al-Zayla’i argued that it is not a purifier from sin because it is enforced on the disbeliever, and there is no purifier for him by consensus. Our clearest evidence is in al-Nahr. [Taken from al-Bahr al-Ra’iq, Foundation of Care, Refutation of the Perplexed, and al-Arf al-Shadhi.]