An Investigation into Stoning to Death

If a judgment is made according to strict criteria about adultery in its most anomalous form, i.e. adultery committed by a married woman, then the woman may be stoned to death as a punishment. The reason behind imposing heavy penalties of this kind for this act is to prevent adultery, because the range of the perversity resulting from adultery, particularly that which is committed by married woman, extends to different aspects of man's life-worldly and otherworldly, material and spiritual, personal and social life, and it extends to society, as well. The most important factor of the different attitudes which Islam and materialistic schools take about adultery and adulterer's penalty is the way they view man, the right to live, freedom, and other fundamental human rights. On the other hand, most of the doubts raised about stoning to death penalty result from the lack of accurate perception of quiddity, necessity, and conditions of such penalty. The conditions of imposing stoning to death penalty are so precise, peculiar and strict that the possibility of committing an error of judgment lessens to zero. Furthermore, along with imposing strict conditions for making decision on adultery, the conditions of its execution are as such that even the legal pretext for incomplete execution of this penalty are observed.On the other hand, rational and scientific reflection would show that this kind of Islamic judgment is by no means incompatible with human rights, and the dispute over this point originates from the difference of worldviews and anthropological attitudes.