Narrated AbuHurayrah:
(This is Ma'mar's version which is more accurate.) A man and a woman
of the Jews committed fornication.
Some of them said to the others: Let us go to this Prophet, for he
has been sent with an easy law. If he gives a judgment lighter than
stoning, we shall accept it, and argue about it with Allah, saying:
It is a judgment of one of your prophets. So they came to the
Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) who was sitting in the mosque among his
companions.
They said: AbulQasim, what do you think about a man and a woman who
committed fornication? He did not speak to them a word till he went
to their school.
He stood at the gate and said: I adjure you by Allah Who revealed
the Torah to Moses, what (punishment) do you find in the Torah for a
person who commits fornication, if he is married?
They said: He shall be blackened with charcoal, taken round a donkey
among the people, and flogged. A young man among them kept silent.
When the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) emphatically adjured him, he
said: By Allah, since you have adjured us (we inform you that) we
find stoning in the Torah (is the punishment for fornication).
The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: So when did you lessen the
severity of Allah's command? He said:
A relative of one of our kings had committed fornication, but his
stoning was suspended. Then a man of a family of common people
committed fornication. He was to have been stoned, but his people
intervened and said: Our man shall not be stoned until you bring
your man and stone him. So they made a compromise on this punishment
between them.
The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: So I decide in accordance with
what the Torah says. He then commanded regarding them and they were
stoned to death.
Az-Zuhri said: We have been informed that this verse was revealed
about them: "It was We Who revealed the Law (to Moses): therein was
guidance and light. By its standard have been judged the Jews, by
the Prophet who bowed (as in Islam) to Allah's will.