It has been reported by Sheikh Sudooq (AR) that a man once came to Hazrat Ali (A) and confessed that he had committed adultery and requested him to purify him of his sin, but Hazrat Ali (A) turned his face to another direction. The man stood up again and said: “Ya Ali. ! I have committed adultery.”
Hazrat Ali (A) again turned his face from his side to another direction and engaged himself in talking with some other people present there. But the man once again addressed Hazrat Ali (A) in the same way, confessed again before him of having committed adultery and requested Hazrat Ali (A) earnestly to purify him of his sin.
Hazrat Ali (A) asked him :“Why are you saying this” ?
“For purification of my sin”, said the man. At first Hazrat Ali (A) said without addressing any man in particular:
“Why people dont’ hide their own sins as Allah hides them …from the eyes of other people ?
The second time when the man requested him again to purify him of his sin, Hazrat Ali (A) remarked :
“What else is there which is better than penitence ? When the man stressed the point for the third time, Hazrat Ali (A) told him that if he repeated his words of confession once again he would have to punish him as had been ordered by Allah;
But when the man, despite the warning by Hazrat Ali (A), repeated the words of confession once again, he asked him as to whether he was physically sound and if his mind was working all right.
When the man replied in the affirmative, Hazrat Ali (A) said to him.“All right, let me make an enquiry about the soundness of your brain at my own as you have told me now. Therefore, you better wait a bit and come to me after some time when I have completed my enquiry.”
After Amir-ul-Momineen Hazrat Ali (A) had made his private enquiry about the soundness of the man’s brain and it proved to be in proper form the man appeared before him again and insisted on the punishment for his above mentioned crime and for his purification thereby.
Hazrat Ali (A) then asked the people to gather next day outside Kufa with the condition that all of them had each a veil on their faces.
On the subsequent day when most of the residents of Kufa had collected outside the city of Kufa, Hazrat Ali (A) addressed them as follows :-
“O the people of Kufa! You have all collected and come here to witness this man to be stoned to death, but I bind you in the name of Allah to do so only if none of you has committed a crime for which punishment was necessary.”
Hearing the above words of Hazrat Ali (A) most of the spectators left the scene. But according to the report of Kulaini (may the peace of Allah be on him) only three persons were left on the scene. They were Hazrat Ali (A) himself and his two sons, Hazrat Imam Hasan (A) and Hazrat Imam Husain (A). When all other people had left, Hazrat Ali (A) hit the man with a big and heavy stone first, sounding the words or ‘Takbir’ (God is the greatest of all). Thereafter, Hazrat Imam Hasan and Hazrat Imam Husain (A) hit him with stones turn by turn till the man was dead and his soul (in all probability) had reached paradise.
Therefore, Hazrat Ali (A) pulled the dead body of the man out of the ditch which was dug previously for the purpose of stoning him to death, brought him to the city of Kufa, led his funeral prayer and buried him.
When people asked him as to why he had not given him the last bath, Hazrat Ali (A) replied as under:
“The patience he manifested while being stoned to death gave him such a bath of purity that he did not require any bath thereafter “ (Biharul Anwar, vol. 9 p. 494 through Abu Turab (Urdu) by Allama Jazairi, vol. 2, pp. 129-l32).