Conviction and punishment for adultery/fornication in Islam.

[YmirGF]

I see. I know this is a delicate and controversial topic to discuss, and I apologize if it caused you any discomfort. Thank you for sharing your view.

You couldn't possibly give me any discomfort @Smart_Guy ... I simply have very strong views on this and similar topics and am not even remotely swayed by anything you and others have provided in this thread as reasons for such encroachment into private matters.

 

[Kirran]

One must consider differences in transparency, among other things.

 

[Smart_Guy]

You couldn't possibly give me any discomfort @Smart_Guy ... I simply have very strong views on this and similar topics and am not even remotely swayed by anything you and others have provided in this thread as reasons for such encroachment into private matters.

Great!

And it's quiet understandable. No two people ever in this life have the exact same agreements/views/opinions. This is the nature of life.

 

[Smart_Guy]

One must consider differences in transparency, among other things.

Agreed!

 

[Smart_Guy]

I have a question for you: how many times in history have laws preventing adultery or fornication ever actually worked? And by that I mean ridding a society completely of the problems you mention in paragraph two.

Thank you very much for the explanation in red.

Let's compare Saudi Arabia with USA and the UK to get an answer. Here I've never heard of a case where children are lost for not knowing their fathers who ran away, orphanages are not common here and the majority of the children in them are of deceased parent (not many anyway), no single young mothers with bad income or no jobs are impregnated and left or gave birth and left with the child, young prostitutes looking for a living is not common here (I personally could even find one), it is not known to see prostitutes controlled by pimps, abortion is not a problem to badly worry about... if we compare it with USA and the UK (with all due respect), I think there is a huge difference. I could be wrong in this, so feedback is appreciated.

As for completely getting rid of problems, that's impossible for any law to do. But that does not mean the USA should allow rape and murder, for example, just because it cannot be completely stopped. Rape and murder already happen there, but imagine they get free passes, what would happen? It will get way much worse, specially rape. Laws are meant to reduce problems as much as possible, wanting to stop them completely, even if they can't. That does not mean we just stand there and watch.

 

[Deidre]

Those are good points, but we're talking about adultery/fornication here, and those are decided by the law. All there is to it is that there are laws to follow, and different places have different laws. I'm afraid there is no such total freedom. All countries have laws and no one is perfectly free to do whatever they want. There is no place like this on earth that I know of.

While that's true, society really shouldn't police morality. Where would it ever end?

 

[Smart_Guy]

While that's true, society really shouldn't police morality. Where would it ever end?

I actually believe it is God who does it, not the society.

I don't remember who brought society really.

But anyway, I really wish humans don't need such laws. God created us and I believe he knows us best.

 

[YmirGF]

I actually believe it is God who does it, not the society.

I don't remember who brought society really.

But anyway, I really wish humans don't need such laws. God created us and I believe he knows us best.

From a purely secular viewpoint, this is where I see a great danger, of people, individuals doing their notion of "god's work".

I will commend you however, @Smart_Guy in explaining your position so very well. You are a credit to Muslims the world over. The reason I say this is because as all too often happens, when Muslims seek to explain their convictions they have a tendency to fail miserably. In many cases they simply makes things worse due to their clumsy, ill-conceived thinking. Kudo's for your clarity!

 

[Aupmanyav]

* Having no doubt, as mentioned in the first requirement, is very important, and examples include having the previous requirement mentioned above done by a man/woman confusing the woman/man with their spouse. This is possible to happen and other now-unknown doubts/suspicions could take place too. Any molecule of doubt and there should be no punishment.

That is what perhaps happened in the case of Maria al-Qibtiyya. Therefore, Allah allowed Mohammad to have sex before the completion of his vow.

Adultery or insemination by a person chosen by the husband or the family occurred in mythology. The progeny of such union was given full rights of inheritance. One female suspect was turned to stone for adultery. In the middle ages, such 'fallen' women (or men) would be ostracized by the society and put in a fifth and lowest caste - Candala.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

As it is mentioned in the OP, I'm talking about many requirements and details, not just committing the act or exact punishment. These two are only parts of it. I know the thread is big, but please consider all the details. If you did, then I apologize and I take it back.

Here's my position:

- there's absolutely nothing wrong with premarital sex. It's outrageous to even consider making "fornication" a crime (though you aren't the first to do so).

- adultery is a matter between the two spouses... and nobody else. It isn't your business to make it a criminal offense.

- corporal punishment, including lashes, is abhorrent. It's evil. It's completely inappropriate for ANY crime.

Please also consider that besides the above, the topic does not mean that people are to be picked up from the streets at random or for simple accusation and get punished. Things follow strict rules and regulations. And it all starts with clarifying and educating, then the decision to break the law followed with action. We're also not talking about stealing food to survive, for example, we're talking about a perfectly possible act to not get along with. It is not like sex is forbidden in itself here too.

I don't care if you have iron-clad proof that somebody "fornicated". My problem with what you're suggesting has nothing to do with evidence. My problem with what you're suggesting is that fornication shouldn't be a crime at all.

Further to the explanation above about all the details mentioned in the OP, the title says adultery/fornication, and it is clarified in the OP and in other posts how those are defined for this thread. It is explained that it only counts if the male genitalia glans penetrates a female genitalia. Otherwise, among other possibilities too, we can completely forget about any punishment related to the subject.

I know how you're defining fornication. It shouldn't be a crime.

 

[LuisDantas]

While that's true, society really shouldn't police morality. Where would it ever end?

Uh?

Society can and should police morality.

May you please elaborate a bit on what you understand by policing morality, and why it could be undesirable?

 

[LuisDantas]

I want to point out that the proper boundaries of sexual morality can and must change significantly depending on other parameters of a given society.

To the best of my understanding, historically there has been a lot of concern regarding rights of inheritance. The chances of survival and of material confort of any given person had a lot to do with whether that person had been acknowledged as the lawful inheritor of the wealth of someone else. To this day, a major reason for marriage to exist at all is to establish financial commitment between the spouses and, to a slightly lesser degree, a responsibility of the spouse's families towards the other spouse's well being.

That is why provisions for allowing men to marry the widows of their own brothers, which sound so odd today, are so recurrent in the Abrahamic religions. There was a very significant practical result of those. Those societies did not really have much of a reason to even state that men are supposed to earn the material means for sustaining their own wives and children, while the wives are expected to seek a honorable man that chooses to provide for them and their offspring.

That was simply how things worked back then; people could not reasonably be expected to feel any significant drive to put their hard effort into seeking the means for safety and economic safety for those not of their own family.

In such an environment, it was very much necessary to take steps to assure that people had some certainty of who their parents and children were; that their wives did not have intercourse with other men; that their men were capable and willing of providing material means for their wives and children. And, significantly, that adultery was perceived (fairly) as not too different from continued stealing of other people's honor and material rights.

It is an entirely different situation when a society is willing to accept that women can earn their own livings and some sort of provision must be made for men that are actually unable or unwilling to provide proper material support for their own children and wives. All the more so when effective birth control is also available, and there are various ways of people for earning material safety without it necessarily coming from their own biological or adoptive parents.

The priorities and even actual needs jump all over the place, and not all of the results are reassuring. There is a lot more freedom, but also a lot more complexity and uncertainty.

Still, it means that fornication loses so much of its drawbacks that t may easily become a good thing overall, and adultery becomes a very lesser concern, or even no concern at all if a proper understanding and structure are in place for a given specific couple.

To a degree I sympathise with the concerns that I think I see in many Muslims, particularly those that do live in patriarcal societies similar to those of the time of the Abrahamic scriptures. Besides the plain fact that their expectations make sense for the parameters that they know and expect to live under, there is also the real and often neglected concern of what to do with those who fall under the cracks of all those complex and varied situations.

I know how troubled I feel when I realize that certain people are actually allowed to raise children despite what to me looks like complete, even criminal lack of proper means (not always financial means at that). There is a considerable degree of voluntary delusion and negligence in what passes for consideration for the future of our society. I have seen children be raised into parameters that, to me, look all the world like they were designed to purposefully make delinquents and social parasites out of them.

Still, those challenges must be faced in ways other than just longing for simpler, more predictable times.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Any comments on the difference between Qu'ranic Sharia law and Sharia law in modern practice, for this topic?

A British tourist was raped by two men in UAE recently. She went straight to the police. They arrested her for committing adultery. She's in prison, still, as far as I know.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

To a degree I sympathise with the concerns that I think I see in many Muslims, particularly those that do live in patriarcal societies similar to those of the time of the Abrahamic scriptures. Besides the plain fact that their expectations make sense for the parameters that they know and expect to live under, there is also the real and often neglected concern of what to do with those who fall under the cracks of all those complex and varied situations.

Almost by definition, a person who has premarital sex or commits adultery has rejected living under a system of rules that forbids these things, so enforcing these sorts of rules necessarily means imposing them on people who don't agree with them.

Edit: except for enforcing them in the sense of "these are the rules of our community and if you're not willing to live by them, you're not welcome to be part of our community."

 

[Kirran]

Edit: except for enforcing them in the sense of "these are the rules of our community and if you're not willing to live by them, you're not welcome to be part of our community."

Which is manageable at a local level, but to enforce it on a society the size of a country is asking for trouble.

 

[Mary Blackchurch]

Very well put. Islam actually does it as in intent to protect community, namely dignity, children, inheritance and legacies. There is so much to say about that, but this is not the right place for it and should be left for another place and time. It is not really there just to oppress people from having their fun.

That certainly simplifies a brutal and ugly form of punishment that's really just there to control a people. In truth, it's not a deterrent, it's just a power play to keep people enslaved in their own private lives. It's a bit too "North Korea" for me.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Which is manageable at a local level, but to enforce it on a society the size of a country is asking for trouble.

I'd argue that it's also unethical to enforce them at the country level. I was thinking more at the level of, say, an individual mosque.

People don't choose their birth nationality. They also don't have the automatic right to take on some other nationality. This means that people are entitled to more protection of their individual rights at that level than if we're talking about a small group with voluntary membership, where leaving the group would cause no hardship.

 

[Kirran]

I'd argue that it's also unethical to enforce them at the country level. I was thinking more at the level of, say, an individual mosque.

People don't choose their birth nationality. They also don't have the automatic right to take on some other nationality. This means that people are entitled to more protection of their individual rights at that level than if we're talking about a small group with voluntary membership, where leaving the group would cause no hardship.

Yes, I agree very much.

Although it's worth keeping in mind that we're both going on the relationship to the state which is common in Western circles but not always elsewhere, where native understandings of governance influenced by culture and religion colour the relationship. For example, we can see in the degree of faith @Smart_Guy puts in the state, and the degree to which he thinks it is its responsibility to moderate matters of morality and the duty of citizens to obey it that it's different to the views you and I have about what a state should be expected to be and do. In the West we do not generally have the same level of trust in the state, and place more emphasis on individual freedoms than on community loyalty and conforming, as far as the relationship to the state goes.

 

[Smart_Guy]

From a purely secular viewpoint, this is where I see a great danger, of people, individuals doing their notion of "god's work".

I will commend you however, @Smart_Guy in explaining your position so very well. You are a credit to Muslims the world over. The reason I say this is because as all too often happens, when Muslims seek to explain their convictions they have a tendency to fail miserably. In many cases they simply makes things worse due to their clumsy, ill-conceived thinking. Kudo's for your clarity!

Yes, that's one view shared by different people as well. People differ in their views and beliefs so it is a clear part of the Islamic education that "to you your religion (any kinda belief system) and to you my own" and also that humanity is created in many different people (different in everything) so they can get antiquated to know each others different cultures, traditions, etc.

And thanks man!

In all honesty, I made a mistake in the beginning not including a part explaining the point of view of Islam forbidding adultery, something I had to go thru within further posts as members brought it up to my attention. Punishments aren't there for revenge or horrifying people in the first place. I'll see if editing is still allowed to do it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Very well put. Islam actually does it as in intent to protect community, namely dignity, children, inheritance and legacies. There is so much to say about that, but this is not the right place for it and should be left for another place and time. It is not really there just to oppress people from having their fun.

An unmarried couple is perfectly capable of protecting "dignity, children, inheritance, and legacies." I know many unmarried couples, some with kids, who do a fine and honourable job in this regard.

If, in your culture, there's no way for people in this position to protect these things, then the problem is with your culture and its rules, not with those people.