Under Sharia Law the traditional punishment for adultery is stoning to death, also called lapidation.
This is a barbaric practice.
It is often the case that miscarriages of justice occur, since under Sharia Law the testimony of a woman is only worth half of the testimony of a man.
Women who are the victims of rape may well be convicted of adultery and executed.
There are no justifications or instructions for lapidation within the Koran for adultery. The punishment is only described within the Hadith.
Further details are in the booklet 'Sharia or Democracy'.
If the Koran is regarded as the supreme document within Islam, there is a logical problem:
No form of execution (lapidation or hanging etc) for adultery can be compatible with the teachings of the Koran, for the simple reason that different categories of adulterous wives are to receive different punishments. A wife who was formerly a slave is to receive half the punishment of one who was a free woman at the time of marriage.
It is not possible to be half executed, and it is not possible to be executed twice.
This logical difficulty can only be resolved if the Koran is obeyed and the Hadith are ignored regarding punishment for adultery.
Why cannot Islamic lawyers see this? It is straightforward enough.
Under considerable international pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran has stated that the woman convicted of adultery, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani will not be executed by stoning. It is however possible that she will be executed by another method.
It is clear that the Iranian judiciary has not fully comprehended the implications of the teaching in the Koran, as described above.
We should put pressure upon them to abolish the death penalty for adultery entirely, to be consistent with the teachings in the Koran itself.
