“Put the Ocean between Them”: Fornication as Permanent Impediment to Marriage in Early Ibāḍī Islam

In the Qurʾān, there are several references to zinā (meaning both fornication and adultery), which stress the social ills that follow from committing such a sin. The Qurʾān makes it clear that those found guilty of zinā, regardless of their marital status, will be liable to receive a punishment of one hundred lashes, whilst slaves, married or unmarried, should receive fifty lashes (Q. 24:2). Nonetheless, the complexities surrounding the issue of adultery, and in particular the issue of its punishment, gave rise to a heated debate in the early Islamic juristic circles, which coalesced into a number of traditions conveying a growing strictness with regard to the punishment of adultery, especially towards married adulterers. In the first part of my paper, I offer an interpretation of the most significant among these narrations. In the second part, I provide an account of the issue from the perspective of the early Ibāḍī sources, which are often neglected in mainstream Islamic studies, in order to trace the Ibāḍī contribution to the early juristic debate on fornication and adultery. My hypothesis is that a focus on Ibāḍī sources, which have been proven to preserve some very early material, provides a stronger basis for the study of the early centuries of Islam.