A monetary fine for zina

Question

This concerns the community headman Pir Muhammad, his partner Mulla Chaudhri, Hamid, and the mutawalli (trustee) of the mosque ‘Abd al-Sattar, who one day came to Nur Muhammad’s house to give sweets. When, on receiving the sweets, we asked about them, the said givers of the sweets answered: “These sweets are haram.” We returned those sweets, because a Muslim does not eat haram. At this the headman Pir Muhammad called us offenders and separated us from the biradari (a kinship or caste community).

Answer

Fornication (zina) is haram, but imposing a monetary fine for this crime is not correct; taking the fine and eating sweets bought with it and feeding them to others is not permissible: [ar]وَالْحَاصِلُ أَنَّ الْمَذْهَبَ عَدَمُ التَّعْزِيرِ بِأَخْذِ الْمَالِ[/ar] “In sum, the position of the madhhab is that there is no ta‘zir by taking property” (“Shami”).

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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