What Sharia says about
adultery comes under “fornication” in the “Reliance”.
Fornicators shall
be scourged:
“Allah most high says:
‘(1) Approach not fornication, it is surely an indecency and evil as a
way (Koran 17:32)
‘(2) The fornicator and the fornicatress, scourge them each a hundred
stripes and let not pity for them take you.’ (Koran 24:2)”. (p12)
There is no
expiation for killing an adulterer
“There is no expiation for killing someone who has left Islam, a highwayman
or a convicted married adulterer, even when someone besides the caliph kills
him.” (o5.4).
Comment: “expiation”, when required, involves the
freeing of two slaves or fasting for two months. (i 1.20)
Fornicators should
be stoned to death:
“The legal penalty is obligatorily imposed upon anyone who fornicates or
commits sodomy when they:
(a)
have
reached puberty;
(b)
are sane;
(c)
and commit
the act voluntarily;
“no matter whether the person is a Muslim, non-Muslim subject of the
Islamic state, or someone who has left Islam.
“If the offender is someone with the capacity to remain chaste, then he
or she is stoned to death, someone with
the capacity to remain chaste meaning anyone who has had sexual intercourse
with their spouse in a valid marriage and is free, or age, and sane.” [emphasis in the original] (o12.1-2)
Are there any positive clauses in
Sharia for fornicators? Yes, but
conditional:
A man must pay a
woman he forces into fornication:
“A man is obliged to pay a woman the amount typically received as
marriage payment by similar brides when the marriage was (consummated but)
invalid, or when a man forces a woman to fornicate with him. When a woman voluntarily fornicates
with a man, she does not receive any marriage payment.” (m8.10)
Fornicators not
punished if they didn’t know….:
“Someone who commits fornication is not punished if he says that he did
not know it was unlawful, provide he is a new Muslim or grew up a remote
wilderness, though if neither of these is the case, such a person is punished.” (o12.4)
