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The ḥāfiẓ [Ibn Ḥajar] quoted in *al-Fatḥ* 12/131, in resolving this apparent contradiction, the statement of Ibn al-ʿArabī: It has not been established that the Prophet ﷺ prayed over Māʿiz. He said: And those who forbade praying over al-Ghāmidiyyah answered that it was because she had known the ruling, whereas Māʿiz had only come asking [about the matter]. He said: This is a weak answer. And it was said: It was because he was killed out of anger for God, while prayer is mercy, so the two are incompatible. He said: This is corrupt, because the anger had come to an end. He said: And the place of mercy remains. The satisfactory answer is that when the imam refrained from praying over the one punished by the prescribed hadd, it was as a deterrent to others. I [Ibn Ḥajar] say: Its completion is that one may say: And when he prayed over him, there was some indication present that made deterrence unnecessary, so it varied according to the persons.

Al-Ṭaḥāwī held, in *Sharḥ Mushkil al-Āthār* 1/379, that the Prophet's ﷺ not praying over Māʿiz was only because when Māʿiz fled from stoning, it is possible that this flight was due to a retraction of what he had confessed, or an escape from the execution of the punishment that had become incumbent upon him, and he was blameworthy in either of these two states. So the Prophet ﷺ refrained from praying over him for that reason, because it was his sunnah not to pray over the blameworthy among his community, just as he did not pray over the one who killed himself, even though he was a Muslim, and just as he did not pray over the one who concealed spoils from the expedition with him at Khaybar.

The ḥāfiẓ said in *al-Fatḥ* 12/131: The scholars have differed on this question. Mālik said: The imam orders the stoning but does not carry it out himself, and does not lift [the stones] from him until he dies, and he is left to his family to wash him and pray over him, but the imam does not pray over him, as a deterrent to people of sins when they know that he is one over whom prayer is not offered, and so that people will not become bold to do the like of his deed. And from some of the Mālikīs: It is permissible for the imam to pray over him, and this is the view of the majority. The well-known view from Mālik is that he disliked the imam and people of virtue praying over the one stoned, and this is the view of Aḥmad. From al-Shāfiʿī: It is not disliked, and this is the view of the majority. From al-Zuhrī: Prayer is not offered over the one stoned nor over the one who kills himself. From Qatādah: Prayer is not offered over the child born of fornication. And ʿIyāḍ stated generally: The scholars have not differed over praying over people of wickedness and sins and those killed in the prescribed punishments, even if some disliked that for people of virtue, except for what Abū Ḥanīfah held regarding the highway robbers, and what al-Ḥasan held regarding the woman who dies from childbirth due to fornication, and what al-Zuhrī and Qatādah held.