In Islam, stoning ()E. Ann Black, Hossein Esmaeili and Nadirsyah Hosen (2014), Modern Perspectives on Islamic Law, , pp. 222-223Rudolph Peters, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law, Cambridge University Press, , pp. 37 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.Muhsan The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2012)Ismail Poonwala (2007), The Pillars of Islam: Laws pertaining to human intercourse, Oxford University Press, , pp. 448-457Al Muwatta Dr Azman Mohd Noor, Punishment for rape in Islamic Law, Malayan Law Journal Articles 5 MLJ cxiv
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) found in Surah An-Nur, 2: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication - flog each of them with a hundred stripes"., Quote - "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment." 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 hadithse.g. Sahih Muslim 17:4191 - 4209 and 17:4916 & 17:4194 (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),OU Kalu (2003), Safiyya and Adamah: Punishing adultery with sharia stones in twenty‐first‐century Nigeria, African Affairs, 102(408), pp. 389-408Nisrine Abiad (2008), Sharia, Muslim States and International Human Rights Treaty Obligations, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, , pp. 24-25 and therefore most schools of Islamic jurisprudence accept it as a prescribed punishment for adultery. The punishment has been rarely applied in the history of Islam owing to the very strict evidential requirements stipulated by Islamic law.
Practice
Legal imposition of the stoning punishment was very rare in Islamic history. During the 623-year history of the Ottoman Empire, for which there are voluminous court records, there is only one recorded example of a judge sentencing a convict to death by stoning, and the ruling contravened Islamic law on at least two grounds (sufficient evidence was not produced, and a Jewish man was sentenced to death despite the law stating clearly that the death penalty for illegal sex should only be applied to Muslims).Marc Baer, "Death in the Hippodrome: Sexual Politics and Legal Culture in the Reign of Mehmed IV," Past & Present 210, 2011, pp. 61-91 No sentences of stoning have been recorded in Syria during Muslim rule. In Ottoman Istanbul, only one instance of stoning ever took place, according to Ottoman records.Jonathan A.C. Brown (2014), Misquoting Muhammad, Oneworld Publications, p. 288 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.James E. Baldwin, "Prostitution, Islamic Law and Ottoman Societies," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55, 2012, pp. 117-52 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,
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.
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. Sentences of stoning have generated heavy backlash by human rights groups, 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.Christopher Melchert (1997), The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th-10th Centuries CE, Brill Academic, , pp. 16 with footnote 78The hadith Sahih Bukhari, the book most trusted after Quran by most Muslims, has several sunnah regarding stoning. For example,Elyse Semerdjian (2008), "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Syracuse University Press, , pp. 8-14
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).
Persons who accuse a woman of adultery but are not able to bring four witnesses—a crime known as Qadhf, القذفJoseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 178–181—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.Quran 24:6-9, Quote - "And for those who launch a charge against their spouses, and have (in support) no evidence but their own― their solitary evidence (can be received) if they bear witness four times (with an oath) by Allah that they are solemnly telling the truth; And the fifth (oath) (should be) that they solemnly invoke the curse of Allah on themselves if they tell a lie. But it would avert the punishment from the wife, if she bears witness four times (with an oath) by Allah, that (her husband) is telling a lie; And the fifth (oath) should be that she solemnly invokes the wrath of Allah on herself if (her accuser) is telling the truth."
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.Al-Muwatta
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). A Muhsan is an adult, free, Muslim who has previously enjoyed legitimate sexual relations in matrimony, regardless of whether the marriage still exists. In other words, stoning does not apply to someone who was never married in his or her life (only lashing in public is the mandatory punishment in such cases).Elyse Semerdjian (2008), "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Syracuse University Press, , pp. 22-23
For evidence, Hanafi fiqh accepts the following: self-confession, or testimony of four male witnesses (female witnesses are not acceptable). Hanafi Islamic law literature specifies two types of stoning. One, when the punishment is based on bayyina, or concrete evidence (four male witnesses). In this case the person is bound, a pit dug, the bound person placed and partially buried inside the pit so that he or she may not escape, thereafter the public stoning punishment is executed. A woman sentenced to stoning must be partially buried up to her chest. The first stones are thrown by the witnesses and the accuser, thereafter the Muslim community present, stated Abū Ḥanīfa and other Hanafi scholars. In second type of stoning, when the punishment is based on self-confession, the stoning is to be performed without digging a pit or partially burying the person. In this case, the qadi (judge) should throw the first stone before other Muslims join in. Further, if the person flees, the person is allowed to leave.
Hanafi scholars specify the stone size to be used for stoning, to be the size of one's hand. It should not be too large to cause death too quickly, nor too small to extend only pain.
Hanafites have traditionally held that the witnesses should throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by witnesses, and the qadi must throw the first stones in case the conviction was brought about by a confession.
Shafi'i The Shafii school literature has the same Islamic law analysis as the Hanafi. However, it recommends, that the first stone be thrown by the Imam or his deputy in all cases, followed by the Muslim community witnessing the stoning punishment.Elyse Semerdjian (2008), "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Syracuse University Press, , pp. 23-25
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."