What about the ḥadd for ziná (illicit sexual intercourse i.e., adultery and fornication)? Is it also inhumane or barbaric?

Ziná (illicit sexual intercourse, i.e., adultery and fornication) is defined in the Sharīʿah as illicit sexual intercourse committed by persons of full legal competence and involving actual penetration. Islam takes a firm and decisive stance against it, yet the ḥadd punishment for ziná, like all ḥudūd, is inherently restricted and therefore rarely implemented. In other words, the Qurʾān establishes a seemingly “harsh” penalty while simultaneously setting a nearly unattainable standard of proof. For instance, it ordains that those who commit ziná should be lashed one hundred times (24:2),¹ but just two verses later (24:4) stipulates that anyone who accuses another of ziná without four witnesses to the act is punished with eighty lashes for slander.² Some of the procedural safeguards related to the ḥadd for ziná are found in the Qurʾān itself, while many others were established through the ḥadīths (Prophetic traditions):

•The requirement of four witnesses testifying in unequivocal terms: As established in the Qurʾānic verse cited earlier, to eliminate all doubt and ensure legal certainty, ziná can only be proven if four upright male witnesses testify in the same court session, using explicit language, and providing consistent and corroborative detail about the alleged act. To prevent assumptions—such as mistaking mere closeness or physical contact for intercourse—the Prophet (PBUH) required that their testimony explicitly confirm having seen the act of penetration, using the analogy of the mirwad, the traditional kohl applicator, entering the mokḥolah, its container.³ That is, each of the four witnesses must have personally seen the act with his own eyes, to the extent that he can testify with certainty that he observed actual penetration. Clearly, for such a scenario to occur, the act would have to take place publicly and in full view of several people at close proximity—something that is virtually impossible.

•Offering the offender possible excuses—such as insanity or limited physical contact, like only kissing—to prevent the ḥadd from being inflicted: In the most well-known case of the Prophet (PBUH) ordering the stoning of a man for ziná, the man, Māʿiz, came to the Prophet (PBUH) and confessed his sin. The Prophet (PBUH) asked whether he was insane,⁴ and when Māʿiz persisted, the Prophet (PBUH) suggested that perhaps he had only kissed the woman.⁵

•The requirement of confessing four times: Since Māʿiz, the man who confessed before the Prophet (PBUH), repeated his confession four times, the majority of Muslim jurists concluded that a confession of ziná must also be made four times. Anything less is insufficient to warrant the ḥadd punishment.⁶ Accordingly, the confession must be made on four separate occasions, and for it to be valid, the accused must be mature, legally competent, and must confess voluntarily, without any form of coercion or perceived necessity.⁷

•The possibility of retracting one’s confession and averting theḥadd punishment: Jurists also agreed, based on the same case of Māʿiz, that even a person who had confessed to ziná could retract that confession at any point and thereby avoid the ḥadd punishment. The Prophet (PBUH) offered Māʿiz several opportunities to withdraw his confession by repeatedly turning away from him.⁸ This principle—the accused being free to retract their confession at any stage, and such retraction preventing the punishment from being carried out—is further illustrated in the case of the Ġāmidiyyah (woman from the tribe of Ġāmid).⁹

•Pregnancy out of wedlock is not deemed proof of ziná: The majority of Muslim jurists held that even external signs—such as pregnancy outside marriage—do not constitute proof that ziná has occurred.¹⁰ For example, if a woman’s husband had been absent for years, jurists reasoned that he might have been miraculously transported to her and thus could have had intercourse with her,¹¹ or that she might have been raped. The one school that considered pregnancy conclusive evidence of ziná—namely, the Mālikī school of Islamic jurisprudence—provided the woman did not claim rape, still allowed for the possibility that pregnancy could last up to five years.¹² Ordinarily, such extraordinary possibilities would carry no legal weight in other matters of the Sharīʿah, yet they were deliberately accepted here as potential ambiguities to avert the application of the ḥadd.¹³ Consequently, unless four witnesses testify against the woman or she confesses, pregnancy out of wedlock alone is insufficient to establish the crime. Moreover, if the accused claims she was raped, this is sufficient to prevent the ḥadd punishment.¹⁴

•Marriage claim as a potential defense against ziná accusation: A man may be exonerated if he claims that he is married to the woman he is accused of committing ziná with, provided she is not married to anyone else. This is because doubt could arise under Islamic law as to whether the couple were lawfully married.

•Mistaken assumption of marriage due to darkness as a defense: The ḥadd punishment may also be waived if a man claims that, because of darkness at night, he mistakenly believed the woman in question to be his wife.¹⁵

The above points clearly demonstrate the extensive allowance for ambiguities in Islamic law when ruling on sexual offenses. While Muslim jurists had no leniency toward ziná itself, they meticulously sought any possible ambiguity to avoid implementing the ḥadd, taking the Prophet’s injunction to avert the ḥudūd through ambiguities—which they viewed as a divine command—very seriously. Remarkably, during the roughly five hundred years of Ottoman rule in Constantinople, historical records indicate that only one instance of stoning for ziná occurred. By contrast, over fifty individuals were executed for various sexual offenses in colonial America (the American colonies under British rule that later became the United States) between 1608 and 1785.¹⁶ Perhaps the stringent ḥadd for ziná, which Allāh’s mercy has made nearly impossible to enforce, exists primarily to remind people of the gravity of a sin they usually get away with, since ziná is by definition committed in private—out of the sight of all but Allāh. After the stoning of Māʿiz ibn Mālik al-ʾAslamiyy, the Prophet (PBUH) addressed the people, warning them against this immorality. He (PBUH) emphasized that anyone who commits such a sin should not disgrace themselves by revealing it. Rather, they should conceal themselves with Allāh’s veil and hasten to repent, for Allāh forgives those who repent to Him. In other words, this path of private repentance is far better for the offender than informing the ruler about their sin. The Prophet (PBUH) stated: “Avoid these filths which Allāh has forbidden. Whoever commits them should conceal himself with Allāh’s veil (i.e., he should not expose himself) and repent to Allāh.”¹⁷ The Prophet (PBUH) initially ignored Māʿiz and the Ġāmidī woman when they came to confess their commission of ziná and ask to be purified with the ḥadd. He (PBUH) repeatedly turned them away, urging them instead to seek forgiveness from Allāh and repent, thereby providing them the opportunity to retract their confession before the punishment was enforced.¹⁸ The point is that private repentance safeguards the public good by preventing harm that could arise if private moral failings were made public. Therefore, if someone were to approach a judge confessing and asking for the ḥadd to be enforced upon them, the judge would reject their confession and dismiss them. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “Dismiss the confessors.”¹⁹ Indeed, had Māʿiz and the Ġāmidī woman not returned to the Messenger of Allāh (PBUH), he would not have sent after them to inflict the ḥadd on them. Buraydah ibn al-Ḥasīb reported: “We, the Companions of the Messenger of Allāh (PBUH), used to talk among ourselves, saying: ‘If the Ġāmidī woman and Māʿiz ibn Mālik had recanted their confession — or he said: had they not returned after their confession — he (PBUH) would not have sent after them. He only had them stoned after the fourth [confession].’”²⁰ Hence, the Prophet (PBUH) exhorted that every effort should be made to avoid the implementation of the ḥadd for ziná by encouraging private repentance.

To conclude, far from seeking to impose the ḥudūd, Islam actively searches for every possible pretext to avert them from offenders, because the ultimate goal of the Sharīʿah is to protect and reform society, not to amputate limbs or execute individuals. A careful examination of the numerous reliable historical reports documenting instances in which the Prophet (PBUH) avoided or clearly discouraged the implementation of ḥudūd confirms that he never acted arbitrarily. Instead, his flexibility in implementing the ḥudūd was guided by the higher maqāṣid (objectives) of the Sharīʿah, as derived directly from the Qurʾān itself. That is, the Prophetic practice shows that the Qurʾānic maqāṣid often called for suspending the literal enforcement of ḥudūd. In other words, Islam prescribes severe punishments but sets strict conditions that make their implementation rare, because the Sharīʿah’s goal is not to apply the ḥudūd broadly, but to deter people from violating the boundaries set by Allāh. The ḥudūd are likely enforced in Saudi Arabia at a higher rate than they historically were in other Muslim societies.²¹ As noted earlier in the discussion of the ḥadd for theft, even in Saudi Arabia—where the ḥudūd are likely enforced at a higher rate than they historically were in other Muslim societies—instances of their implementation remain extremely rare. With regard to the ḥadd for ziná, between 1981 and 1992, there were four executions by stoning in Saudi Arabia. In a one-year sample (1982–83), among 659 convictions for ḥadd-level sexual offences, no one was stoned. It is worth noting that many death sentences during this period were motivated by political reasons rather than the enforcement of ḥudūd.²² In short, the ḥadd for ziná is fundamentally intended to deter people from engaging in sexual indecency—a vice that, in contemporary Western societies, is contributing to what may rightly be described as a tragic form of genocide: abortion. Indeed, the definition of genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as undesirable” aptly applies to abortion, where the targeted group consists of unwanted unborn children terminated through extensive networks of abortion facilities that have effectively become killing centers for the unborn. Indisputably, it is rare for couples engaged in lawful marital relations to abort a child conceived within that union; however, it is far more common for those involved in illicit sexual relations to do so. As a result, according to the World Health Organization, an estimated 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year—approximately 200,000 every day.²³ This represents one of the devastating moral and social consequences of illicit sexual relations. In Western legal systems, fetuses do not possess a distinct legal personality independent of their mothers until birth; consequently, women have the legal right to terminate their pregnancies. Regrettably, there are no human rights organizations dedicated to defending the unborn, nor media advocates to speak on their behalf. Thus, the mass killing of unborn children proceeds in an atmosphere of silence and collective acquiescence throughout the West. It is therefore astonishing that those who express outrage at the Islamic punishment prescribed for unlawful sexual intercourse remain indifferent to the far graver consequences of this sin—namely, abortion, an atrocity whose magnitude is comparable to that of crimes against humanity.