Are you married?" He said: "Yes." Then the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: "Stone him." It is agreed upon (4). If the hadd were mandatory upon a single confession, the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) would not have turned away from him, because it is not permissible to abandon a hadd that has become mandatory for Allah the Exalted. Nu'aym ibn Hazzal also reported his hadith, which includes: "Until he said it four times, and the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said: 'You have said it four times, so with whom?'" He said: "With so-and-so." Reported by Abu Dawud (5). This is an explanation from him that indicates that the confession of four times is what makes it mandatory. Abu Barza al-Aslami reported that Abu Bakr al-Siddiq said to him in the presence of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace): "If you confess four times, the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) will stone you" (6). This is indicative from two aspects; one of which is that the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) approved him for this and did not deny it, so it is in the position of his own statement, for he does not approve of an error. Second, he must have known this from the judgment of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), otherwise, he would not have dared to say it in his presence. As for their hadiths, "confession" is a verbal noun that applies to both small and large amounts, and our hadith clarifies it and shows that the confession by which it is established is four times.

Section: And it is the same whether it is in a single gathering or in separate gatherings. Al-Athram said: I heard Abu Abd Allah being asked about the adulterer: Is it repeated four times? He said: "Yes, based on the hadith of Ma'iz, it is more cautious." I said to him: "In a single gathering or in various gatherings?" He said: "As for the hadiths, they do not point to anything but a single gathering, except for that shaykh, Bashir ibn Muhajir, from Abd Allah ibn Buraydah, from his father, and that, in my view, is a rejected (munkar) hadith." Abu Hanifa said: "It is not established except by four confessions in four gatherings, because Ma'iz confessed in four gatherings." Our evidence is that the authentic hadith only indicates that he confessed four times in one gathering. We have already mentioned the hadith, and because it is one of the two pieces of evidence for adultery, it is sufficient in one gathering, like witnesses.