According to Shaykh Tabarsi another incident of that year is that a Jew woman of noble rank having been guilty of adultery, her friends wished to free her, but the Prophet ordered her and her paramour to be stoned, according to the Taurat, and commanded it to be done in all cases where the guilty were detected in the act by four witnesses. Both the accused were married persons. The Jews of Khyber wrote to the Jews of Medina to ask Muhammad about it and they thought that perhaps he will not rule about stoning them. So they sent Kaab bin Ashraf, Kaab bin Usaid, Shoba bin Amr, Malik bin Saif and Kanana bin Abul Haqiq and all the Jew nobles came to him and asked him to judge the case of married adulterers.
The Holy Prophet (S) asked them if they will accept his decision to which they assented. Jibraeel came down with the command of stoning and the Prophet mentioned it to them. But the Jews refused to accept it. Jibraeel told the Prophet to appoint Abdullah bin Surya as the arbitrator. The Holy Prophet (S) told them: “Do you know a one-eyed young man of Fadak, named Ibn Surya?” “Yes,” they said.
The Prophet asked their opinion about him and they said there is no one as knowledgeable and intelligent as him among all the Jews of the world. The Prophet summoned him and Abdullah bin Surya arrived.
The Prophet adjured him in the name of the God who revealed Taurat to Prophet Musa (a.s.), Who split the sea, saved you from drowning, drowned Firon, shaded you with a cloud and sent Manna and Salwa; tell me if the command of stoning is mentioned in Taurat or not?” “Yes, by the God you have mentioned. If I had not feared that if I lied, the Lord of Taurat would burn me, I would have indeed denied this.
You tell, what is the command about this in your Book?” The Prophet said: “If four witnesses testify seeing the penetration and the accused are married, it becomes obligatory to stone them.” Ibn Surya said, “The Taurat has also mentioned the same order.” The Messenger of Allah (S) asked, “Why have you people changed this edict?” Ibn Surya said: “When our noble class commits this sin, we don’t apply this punishment to them, and when the accused are weak and poor, we subject them to this punishment.
That is why this sin has increased in our noble class. So much so that the king’s cousin has also committed adultery but we did not stone him. Whereas a poor man indulged in this and the king wanted to have him stoned; so the people told him, we would not allow you to stone him till you award the same punishment to your cousin.
Scholars reached an agreement to change the punishment of adultery that is fit for nobles as well ordinary people. Thus it was decided that when a person of noble class commits this sin, we give him forty lashes, make him sit on an ass the wrong way after blackening his face and take him around the town.
And this order is current among the Jews. Jews said: “Why did you confess all this? The opinion we expressed about you was wrong, because we didn’t want to backbite you.” Ibn Surya said: “Muhammad had put me under an oath, therefore I could not lie.” After that, by the order of the Prophet, they were stoned in the Masjid and the Holy Prophet (S) said: “I am the first to revive the divine law even though people wish to conceal it. At that juncture, the following verse was revealed:
يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ قَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولُنَا يُبَيِّنُ لَكُمْ كَثِيرًا مِمَّا كُنْتُمْ تُخْفُونَ مِنَ الْكِتَابِ وَيَعْفُو عَنْ كَثِيرٍ
“O followers of the Book! indeed Our Apostle has come to you making clear to you much of what you concealed of the Book and passing over much…”21
Ibn Surya jumped up and placing his hand on the knees of the Prophet said: “I seek your’s and Allah’s refuge from our mistakes which the Almighty Allah has said that He forgives.” Then he asked the Prophet about his sleep. The Holy Prophet (S) said: “My eyes sleep but my heart doesn’t.” Then he asked the Prophet what determined the resemblance of a child to its father or mother, he replied, “The excess of essence furnished by either parent. Then he asked which part of the child is created from the sperm of man which from the female elements.
The Holy Prophet (S) went into a swoon and when he recovered, his face was flushed and he was perspiring, a condition that overtook him at the time of receiving divine revelation. Then he told Ibn Surya: “Bones, veins and sinews were derived from the father, and the flesh, blood, nails and hair from the mother.
The Jew agreed that it was so, and became a Muslim.