Wa’il b. Hujr said that when a woman was forced against her will in the time of God’s Messenger he averted the punishment from her but inflicted it on the one who had molested her. The transmitter did not mention that he appointed a dower to be paid her.
She reported God’s Messenger as saying, “Avert the infliction of prescribed penalties on Muslims as much as you can, and if there is any way out let a man go, for it is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.”
Tirmidhi transmitted it, saying it has been transmitted from her without tracing it to the Prophet, and that is sounder.
He said that a woman went out in the time of the Prophet to go to prayer, and a man who met her attacked her and got his desire of her. She shouted and he went off, and when a company of the Emigrants came by she said, “That man did such and such to me.” They seized the man and brought him to God’s Messenger who said to the woman, “Go away, for God has forgiven you,” but of the man who had had intercourse with her he said, “Stone him to death.” He also said, “He has repented to such an extent that if the people of Medina had repented similarly it would have been accepted from them.”
