Stoning in Islam
Under some versions of Islamic law (Sharia), it is the prescribed punishment in cases of adultery committed by a married person which requires either a confession from either the adulterer or adulteress, or producing four witnesses of sexual penetration.
"[10] For this reason some minority Muslim sects such as Kharijites found in Iraq, and Islamic Modernists such as the Quranists disagree with the legality of rajm.
However, stoning is mentioned in multiple hadiths[11] (reports claiming to quote what Muhammad said verbatim on various matters, which most Muslims and Islamic scholars consider an authoritative source second only to Quran as a source of religious law and rulings),[12][13] and therefore most schools of Islamic jurisprudence accept it as a prescribed punishment for adultery.
[17] Techniques used to argue that the pregnancy of a single woman should not be considered evidence of zināʿ included fantastic presumptions about the length of the human gestation period.
Out of the world’s forty-nine Muslim-majority states, six retain the punishment in deference to Islamic legal tradition, ... Of these countries only Iran, which officially placed a moratorium on stoning in 2002 but still gives leeway to individual judges, has actually carried it out.
[23][24][25] In one case, an appellate court in the state of Sokoto overturned a stoning sentence on the basis that divorced defendant might not have conceived her child in zina (fornication) because she may have been carrying her baby for as long as five years.
[29] From July 2014 to February 2015, at least 16 people of whom nine were executed (not all by rajm) by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria for the crimes of adultery or homosexuality, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The early Islamic text Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq, in the chapter on Rajm, lists 70 hadith reports of stoning linked to Muhammad, and 100 to his companions and other authorities.
For example,[33] Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: 'Umar said, "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, "We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book," and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed.
I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession."
Narrated Ash Shaibani: I asked `Abdullah bin Abi `Aufa, 'Did Allah's Messenger (SAWS) carry out the Rajam penalty ( i.e., stoning to death)?'
Rajm, sometimes spelled as Rajam, has been extensively discussed in the texts of early, medieval and modern era Islamic jurisprudence (fiqhs).
[4] Persons who accuse a woman of adultery but are not able to bring four witnesses—a crime known as Qadhf, القذف[34]—are liable to a punishment of 80 lashes and to be unacceptable as witnesses unless they repent and reform.
[35][non-primary source needed] One of the widely followed Islamic legal commentaries, Al-Muwatta by Malik ibn Anas, state that contested pregnancy is sufficient proof of adultery and the woman must be stoned to death.
[3][36] Hanafi jurists have held that the accused must be a muhsan at the time of religiously disallowed sex to be punished by Rajm (stoning).
[37] A Muhsan is an adult, free, Muslim who has previously enjoyed legitimate sexual relations in matrimony, regardless of whether the marriage still exists.
[38] The first stones are thrown by the witnesses and the accuser, thereafter the Muslim community present, stated Abū Ḥanīfa and other Hanafi scholars.
"[39] Hanbali Islamic law sentences all forms of consensual but religiously illegal sex as punishable with Rajm.
However, Hanabali scholars insist that homosexuality among men must be punished by beheading, instead of Rajm as recommended by the Maliki madhab of Islam.
[40] Maliki school of jurisprudence (fiqh) holds that stoning is the required punishment for illegal sex by a married or widowed person, as well as for any form of homosexual relations among men.
[13] Malik ibn Anas, founded of Maliki fiqh, considered pregnancy in an unmarried woman as a conclusive proof of zina.
[3][36] Later Maliki Muslim scholars admitted the concept of "sleeping embryo", where a divorced woman could escape the stoning punishment, if she remained unmarried and became pregnant anytime within five years of her divorce, and it was assumed that she was impregnated by her previous husband but the embryo remained dormant for five years.
[41] All Sunni schools of fiqh, as well as Volume 7 of the Shi'ite hadith, The Book of Legal Penalties in Kitab al-Kafi, declare stoning as the required punishment for sex that is not allowed under Sharia.
The vast majority of Muslims consider hadiths, which describe the words, conduct and example set by Muhammad during his life, as a source of law and religious authority second only to the Quran.
