Muwatta, Book of the prescribed punishments (hudud)

The Book of the Hudud (Prescribed Punishments) is the twenty-seventh book of the Muwatta in the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi from Malik ibn Anas, in the edition of Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf (1997), in the second volume. It occupies pages 379 to 407 in the PDF pagination, and contains 67 numbered texts (2374–2440) in eleven chapters. It concerns stoning for unlawful intercourse (zina), the prescribed punishment for slander and insinuation, amputation of the hand for theft, and the cases of theft for which there is no amputation: snatching, confession and breach of trust. ^{1 2}

• Reports on stoning (2374–2385): the stoning of two Jews, the confession of a man and a woman, and the ruling on a pregnant woman. ^{1 3}
• On one who confesses to adultery against himself (2386–2389): flogging with the whip, and the retraction of one who confessed. ^{3 4}
• General reports on the punishment for adultery (2390–2392): the punishment of a slave-woman and a slave, and the banishment of an adulterer. ^{4 5}
• Reports on a woman who was raped (2393–2394): a pregnant woman with no husband, and the waiting period of purification. ⁵
• The prescribed punishment for slander, banishment and insinuation (2395–2401): slandering a group, the pardon of the one slandered, and a man disowned by his father. ^{5 6}
• Where there is no prescribed punishment (2402–2405): intercourse with a jointly owned slave-woman, and the slave-girl of a son. ⁷
• Where amputation is required (2406–2411): the threshold for amputation, and the amputation for a citron. ^{7 8}
• Reports on the amputation of a runaway slave and of a thief (2412–2415): the amputation of the hand of a runaway slave if he steals. ⁹
• Leaving off intercession for a thief once he reaches the ruler (2416–2417). ^{9 10}
• General reports on amputation (2418–2431): the one who steals repeatedly, the theft of a group, a house and a place of safekeeping, and a slave or slave-woman stealing the master's goods. ^{11 12}
• Where there is no amputation (2432–2440): young palm shoots and fruit, snatching, the one who betrays trust, the borrower, and the one who takes by stealth. ^{12 2}

Malik holds that the prescribed punishment is not carried out on confession unless it is established against the confessor, that a slave who steals what calls for amputation is amputated even if he is a runaway, and that amputation is not due on a hired worker, a servant, a trustee or a borrower who denies the loan. He holds that a place of safekeeping is what its owner has locked. ^{4 13 14}

Each text of the book has its own record. It names the highest narrator and the chapter, gives the substance of the report in the museum's own wording, and records the editor's takhrij where it is needed. See Prescribed punishment for the places where its rulings appear in the book. ¹