Stoning in Islam

thumb|Islamic miniature depicting Meccan Mobs led by [[Abu Lahab trying to stone Muhammad and Abu Bakr at the Souk of Okaz]]

thumb|360px|A map showing countries where public [[Rajm|stoning is a judicial or extrajudicial form of punishment, as of 2013.]]

In Islam, stoning () is the Hudud punishment wherein an organized group throws stones at a convicted individual until that person dies. Under some versions of Islamic law (Sharia), it is the prescribed punishment in cases of Zina committed by a married person which requires either a confession from either the adulterer or adulteress, or producing four witnesses of sexual penetration.

The punishment of stoning as a capital punishment for adultery is unique in Islamic law in that it conflicts with the Qur'anic prescription for premarital and extramarital sex (zina) For this reason some minority Muslim sects such as the former Kharijites, and Islamic modernists such as the Quranists disagree with the legality of stoning.

However, stoning is mentioned in multiple hadiths (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), and therefore most schools of Islamic jurisprudence accept it as a prescribed punishment for adultery. No sentences of stoning have been recorded in Syria during Muslim rule. In Ottoman Istanbul, there was only one instance of stoning ever took place, according to Ottoman records. Muslim jurists used a number of techniques to avoid application of the stoning penalty. They interpreted the evidentiary requirements so strictly that it was effectively impossible to prove the offense. They actively encouraged witnesses to withhold testimony, and argued that it was morally better to do so. They defined the offense narrowly to exclude many types of sexual activity. And they developed the legal concept of shubha (doubt), which held that when an illegal sexual act resembled legal sex in some way, the stoning penalty should not be applied. 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. Classical Hanafite jurists ruled that it could last for up to two years, Shafi'ites four, and Malikites as long as five years.

According to journalist Max Rodenbeck,

<blockquote>In almost all cases where it has been applied in recent years, stoning has taken place in tribal or rebel areas beyond the control of central governments—the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS in Iraq, and Boko Haram in Nigeria being cases in point. 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.</blockquote>

Saudi Arabia sentenced four people by stoning between the 1980 and 1992.

As of 2005, stoning punishments have been considered or handed down in Nigeria and Somalia for the crimes of adultery and sodomy (homosexuality). Since the Sharia legal system was introduced in northern Nigeria in 2000, more than a dozen Muslims have been sentenced to death by stoning. 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. Another Nigerian state court of appeal assessed the upper limit of gestation at seven years.

In Pakistan "more than three decades of official Islamization have so far failed to produce a single actual stoning..." Iran officially placed a moratorium on stoning in 2002 but still gives leeway to individual judges to sentence stoning. which consider stoning a form of execution by torture.

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.

Scriptural basis

Quran

Stoning is not mentioned as a form of capital punishment in the canonical text of the Quran.

Hadith

Numerous Sahih hadiths describe stoning. According to Sunni scholars, sahih hadiths are reliable. 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.thumb|upright=1.3|The Stoning of an Adulteress, illustration to a manuscript of [[1001 Nights by Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari or his atelier. Tehran, 1853–1857.]]The hadith Sahih Bukhari, the book most trusted after Quran by most Muslims, has several sunnah regarding stoning. For example,

See also other hadiths from Sahih Bukhari: .

Sahih Muslim Book 17 has several hadith regarding Stoning specifically (17:4191-4209, and 17:4914). For example,

See also other hadiths from the Sahih Muslim book: , , .

Other hadiths also mention stoning as the punishment for adultery.

See also other hadiths from the Abu Dawud book: , , , .

In jurisprudence (fiqh)

Rajm, sometimes spelled as Rajam, has been extensively discussed in the texts of early, medieval and modern era Islamic jurisprudence (fiqhs).—are liable to a punishment of 80 lashes and to be unacceptable as witnesses unless they repent and reform. The testimony of a man who accuses his own spouse without any other witnesses may be accepted if they swear by God four times that they are telling the truth with a fifth oath to incur God's condemnation if they be lying. In this case, if his spouse counterswears, no punishment will be enforced.

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.

Hanafi

Hanafi jurists have held that the accused must be a muhsan at the time of religiously disallowed sex to be punished by Rajm (stoning).

For evidence, Hanafi fiqh accepts the following: self-confession, or testimony of four male witnesses (female witnesses are not acceptable).

Hanbali

Hanbali jurist Ibn Qudama states, "Muslim jurists are unanimous on the fact that stoning to death is a specified punishment for the married adulterer and adulteress. The punishment is recorded in number of traditions and the practice of Muhammad stands as an authentic source supporting it. This is the view held by all Companions, Successors and other Muslim scholars with the exception of Kharijites."

Hanbali Islamic law sentences all forms of consensual but religiously illegal sex as punishable with stoning. However, Hanbali scholars insist that homosexuality among men must be punished by beheading, instead of stoning as recommended by the Maliki madhab of Islam.

Maliki

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.

Others

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.

In contrast to Sunni schools, Shia fiqh, in Rajm cases, allows some of the witnesses to be women but considers the witness of a woman as half as valid as a man's. Thus, before an accused is sentenced to stoning in the Shia system, the witnesses may be four men, three men and two women, two men and four women, one man and six women, but witnesses must include at least one man. and other verses.

The reliability of Hadith is disputed by Quranist Muslims who reject all hadith, and as a consequence the stoning punishment as well.

Syed Abdullah Tariq argues that stoning is not the punishment of the fornication, as generally been understood, and it is not among the Hudood either. His book Haqiqat-i Rajm was widely criticized by the ulama as he had tried to clear doubts against the punishments prescribed by Islam for different crimes.

The Islamic modernist Javed Ahmad Ghamidi postulates that Quranic verses prescribe stoning only for those who habitually commit fornication as prostitutes do, which then constitute "mischief in the land" that is punishable by death according to Quranic verses 5:33-34. This view is not popular and does not enjoy acceptance by most ulema.

References

Sources

External links

Opposing rajm, Ibrahim B. Syed
Stoning to death does not appear in the Qur’an
Stoning to Death
Punishment of Rajam
Stoning to Death: A Violation of the Qur'an