when he flogged Shurah, then stoned her, and said: "I flogged her by the Book of Allah the Exalted, then I stoned her by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace)." (6) Then, if we were to say that the previously married (thayyib) is not to be flogged, this would be a specification (takhsis) of the general verse, and this is permissible without dispute, for the generalities of the Qur'an regarding affirmation are all subject to specification. Their claim that this is abrogation is not correct; it is merely specification. Furthermore, even if it were abrogation, it would be abrogation by the verse mentioned by Umar (may Allah be pleased with him). We have narrated that messengers of the Khawarij came to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (may Allah have mercy on him), and among the things they criticized him for was stoning. They said: "There is nothing in the Book of Allah except flogging." They also said: "You have made it obligatory for a menstruating woman to make up the fast but not the prayer, and the prayer is more strictly required." Umar said to them: "Do you not accept anything except what is in the Book of Allah?" They replied: "Yes." He said: "Then inform me about the number of obligatory prayers, the number of their pillars, their rak'ahs, and their timings; where do you find that in the Book of Allah the Exalted? And inform me about that upon which Zakah is due, its amounts, and its thresholds (nusub)?" They said: "Give us time." They returned that same day and found nothing of what he had asked them about in the Qur'an. They said: "We did not find it in the Qur'an." He said: "Then how did you arrive at it?" They said: "Because the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) did it, and the Muslims did it after him." He said to them: "Likewise is stoning, and the making up of the fast, for the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) stoned, his successors stoned after him, and the Muslims [stoned]; and the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) commanded the making up of the fast, not the prayer, and his wives and the wives of his Companions did that." When this is established, the meaning of stoning is to throw stones and other things at him until he is killed thereby. Ibn al-Mundhir said: "The scholars have reached a consensus that the one being stoned should continue to be stoned until he dies." This is because the absolute term 'stoning' (rajm) implies killing by it, as in the saying of Allah the Exalted: {...surely you will be among the stoned} (7). The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) stoned the two Jews who committed adultery, as well as Ma'iz and al-Ghamidiyyah, until they died (8).