GOING SWIMMING FULLY CLOTHED A Brief Introduction to Islamic Law | STONING Precedents and Ritual Precedents Hadith The following hadith is from the Muwatta, an early collection of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad compiled by Imam Malik ibn Anas [711-795]. Hadiths along with the Koran are the foundation of Islamic law. Malik related to me from Yaqub ibn Zayd ibn Talha from his father Zayd ibn Talha that Abdullah ibn Abi Mulayka informed him that a woman came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and informed him that she had committed adultery and was pregnant. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to her, "Go away until you give birth." When she had given birth, she came to him. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to her, "Go away until you have suckled and weaned the baby." When she had weaned the baby, she came to him. He said, "Go and entrust the baby to someone." She entrusted the baby to someone and then came to him. He gave the order and she was stoned. The preceding action of the Prophet is also occasionally given as proof by Islamic scholars that the man believers consider the embodiment of the perfect human being, whose every action must be emulated as closely as possible, cared for the welfare of children because he did not have their mothers horribly put to death until they no longer needed her breast milk. Koran The last official revelation in the Koran on the punishment for adultery is the following: 24:2 The adulteress and the adulterer, whip each one of them a hundred lashes; and let no pity move you in Allah’s religion, regarding them; if you believe in Allah and the Hereafter. And let a group of believers witness their punishment. This verse replaced (abrogated) a previous revelation from Allah about abandoning the adulteress in her home until she died or until He comes up with another solution. 4:15 As for those of your women who commit adultery, call four witnesses from your own against them; and if they testify then detain them in the houses till death overtakes them or Allah opens another way for them. Syed Shahabuddin writing in the Milli Gazette, Indian Muslim’s leading English newspaper reminds us that flogging is the punishment for adultery, not stoning and the Koran is the final authority, even the Prophet could not substitute his own opinion. If this is the case, why does Islamic Law, in some jurisdictions, give precedence to the example of the Prophet instead of the Koran? Islamic does not give precedence to an action of the Prophet according to Shahabuddin, but to a statement attributed to the second Caliph Umar (second successor to the Prophet Muhammad) who said that a revelation on the subject, which abrogated both verse 24:2 and verse 4:15, had been received but had been lost. Umar was one the four Rightly Guided Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet. Umar's words, in Islamic communities that would throw stones at women's and girl's heads until they are dead for alleged infidelity can not be doubted. If Umar said a verse abrogating i.e. annulling all other verses on the subject and prescribing a barbaric punishment for adulterous women and girls while sparing adulterous men had been received he must be telling the truth. In the inescapable logic of Islamic law, if it was the last instruction received from Allah on the subject it is the law. The Stoning Ritual The mother, after being sentenced to death by the man also known as The Prophet of Mercy*, would have been placed in a cloth sack with her hands tied behind her back and buried in the ground up to her shoulders. She is not buried up to her neck allegedly to allow her to wriggle free and prove her innocence before a missile hits its mark, and not to make the whole thing more sporting for the men who will be hurling stones at her head while chanting "Allah hu Akbar" (God is great). On October 27, 2008 13-year-old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed in this manner in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, Somalia in front of an estimated 1,000 spectators. When the Taliban were in charge, women and girls who contravened Islam's strict moral code were made to kneel before being shot in the back of the head. This method of executing females they consider morally deficient may be abandoned by the Taliban as being un-Islamic when they return to power because it is not in the manner prescribed by the perfect human being. -------------- * God's Messenger acquired this unlikely moniker after the fall of Mecca when he spared the lives of some of his opponents in the Arab Civil War which saw the imposition of Islam by force on the inhabitants of the peninsula.
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