Zina

Zināʾ () or zinah ( or ) is an Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse. According to traditional jurisprudence, "zina" can include adultery, fornication, 
prostitution, rape, sodomy, homosexuality, incest, and bestiality. Although classification of homosexual intercourse as "zina" differs according to legal school, the majority apply the rules of "zinā" to homosexuality, mostly male homosexuality. 
"Zina" belongs to the category of hudud offenses (sing.: hadd), which are offenses that are specifically mentioned in the Quran, also known as "claims of God" (huqūq Allāh). Several verses of the Quran prohibit "zina", including 24:2 which says it should be punished with 100 lashes. However, on the basis of hadith, the penalty for an offender who is "muhsan" (adult, free, Muslim, and married at least once) is stoning to death (rajm). "Zina" must be proved by testimony of four male Muslim eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, or a confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. Rapists could be prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of "zina" without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called "qadhf" (), which is itself a "hudud" offense.
There are very few recorded examples of the stoning penalty for "zinā" being implemented legally. Prior to legal reforms introduced in several countries during the 20th century, the procedural requirements for proving the offense of "zinā" to the standard necessary to impose the stoning penalty were effectively impossible to meet "Zina" became a more pressing issue in modern times, as Islamist movements and governments employed polemics against public immorality. During the Algerian Civil War, Islamist insurgents assassinated women suspected of loose morals, the Taliban have executed suspected adultresses using machine guns, and "zina" has been used as justification for honor killings. After sharia-based criminal laws were widely replaced by European-inspired statutes in the modern era, in recent decades several countries passed legal reforms that incorporated elements of hudud laws into their legal codes. Iran witnessed several highly publicized stonings for "zina" in the aftermath of the Islamic revolution. In Nigeria, local courts have passed several stoning sentences, all of which were overturned on appeal or left unenforced. In Pakistan, the Hudood Ordinances of 1979 subsumed prosecution of rape under the category of "zina", making rape extremely difficult to prove and exposing the victims to jail sentences for admitting illicit intercourse forced upon them. Although these laws were amended in 2006, and again in 2016. According to human rights organizations, stoning for "zina" has also been carried out in Saudi Arabia.
Islamic scriptures.
Muslim scholars have historically considered "zinā" a "hudud" sin, or crime against God. It is mentioned in both Quran and in the Hadiths.
Introduction and definition.
The Quran deals with "zina"ʾ in several places. First is the Qur'anic general rule that commands Muslims not to commit "zina':
In the Hadiths, the definitions of "zina" have been described as all the forms of sexual intercourse, penetrative or non-penetrative, outside the institution marriage or the institution of slavery.
Adultery and fornication.
Quran.
Most of the rules related to fornication, adultery and false accusations from a husband to his wife or from members of the community to chaste women, can be found in Surat an-Nur (the Light). The sura starts by giving very specific rules about punishment for "zina":
 
Hadith.
The public lashing and public lethal stoning punishment for fornication and adultery are also prescribed in Hadiths, the books most trusted in Islam after Quran, particularly in "Kitab Al-Hudud".
Hadith Sahih al Bukhari, another authentic source of sunnah, has several entries which refer to death by stoning. For example,
Other hadith collections on "zina" between men and woman include:
Rape.
Rape has been defined as "zina al-zibr" (forcefull illicit sex) in the traditional Islamic texts. Few hadiths have been found regarding rape in the time of Muhammad. The most popular transmitted hadith given below indicates the ordinance of stoning for the rapist but no punishment and no requirement of four eyewitnesses for the rape victim.
The hadiths declare rape of a free or slave woman as "zina".
View of scholars.
If a confession or the four witnesses required to prove a "hadd" crime are not available, but rape can be proved by other means, the rapist is sentenced under the "ta'zir" system of judicial discretion. According to the eleventh-century Maliki jurist Ibn 'Abd al-Barr:
Homosexuality.
Islamic teachings (in the "hadith" tradition) presume same-sex attraction, extol abstention and (in the Qur'an) condemn consummation. The Quran forbids homosexual relationships, in Al-Nisa, Al-Araf (verses 7:80–84, 11:69–83, 29:28–35 of the Quran using the story of Lot's people), and other surahs. For example,
 
In another verse, the statement of prophet lot has been also pointed out,
Some scholars indicate this verse as the prescribed punishment for homosexuality in the Quran:
However, there are different interpretations of the last verse where who the Quran refers to as "two among you". Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi sees it as a reference to premarital sexual relationships between men and women. In his opinion, the preceding Ayat of Sura Nisa deals with prostitutes of the time. He believes these rulings were temporary and were abrogated later when a functioning state was established and society was ready for permanent rulings, which came in Sura Nur, Ayat 2 and 3, prescribing flogging as a punishment for adultery. He does not see stoning as a prescribed punishment, even for married men, and considers the Hadiths quoted supporting that view to be dealing with either rape or prostitution, where the strictest punishment under Islam for spreading "fasad fil ardh", meaning corruption in the land, referring to egregious acts of defiance to the rule of law was carried out.
The Hadiths consider homosexuality as "zina", and male homosexuality to be punished with death. For example, Abu Dawud states,
The discourse on homosexuality in Islam is primarily concerned with activities between men. There are, however, a few hadith mentioning homosexual behavior in women; The jurists are agreed that "there is no hadd punishment for lesbianism, because it is not zina. Rather a ta’zeer punishment must be imposed, because it is a sin..'". Although punishment for lesbianism is rarely mentioned in the histories, al-Tabari records an example of the casual execution of a pair of lesbian slavegirls in the harem of al-Hadi, in a collection of highly critical anecdotes pertaining to that Caliph's actions as ruler. Some jurists viewed sexual intercourse as possible only for an individual who possesses a phallus; hence those definitions of sexual intercourse that rely on the entry of as little of the corona of the phallus into a partner's orifice. Since women do not possess a phallus and cannot have intercourse with one another, they are, in this interpretation, physically incapable of committing "zina".
Sodomy.
Muslim scholars justify the prohibition of sodomy, anal sex (liwat) and oral sex, on the basis of the Qur'anic verse 2:223, saying that it commands intercourse only in the vagina (i.e. potentially procreational intercourse). The vaginal intercourse may be in any manner the couple wishes, that is, from behind or from the front, sitting or with the wife lying on her back or on her side.
There are also several "hadith" which prohibit sodomy.
Furthermore, it is reported that Muhammad referred to anal sex as "minor incest".
Islamic law establishes two categories of legal, sexual relationships: between husband and wife, and between a man and his concubine. All other sexual relationships are considered "zināʾ" (fornication), including adultery and homosexuality, according to Islamic law and exegesis of the Qur'an. From the story of Lot it is clear that the Qur'an regards sodomy as an egregious sin. The death by stoning for people of Sodom and Gomorrah is similar to the stoning punishment stipulated for illegal heterosexual sex. There is no punishment for a man who sodomizes a woman because it is not tied to procreation. However, other jurists insist that any act of lust in which the result is the injecting of semen into another person constitutes sexual intercourse.
In Islam, oral sex between a husband and a wife is considered "Makruh Tahrimi" or highly undesirable by some Islamic jurists when the act is defined as the mouth and the tongue coming in contact with the genitals. The reason behind considering this act as not recommended is manifold, the foremost being the issues of modesty, purification (Taharat) and cleanliness.
The most common argument states that the mouth and tongue are used for the recitation of the Quran and for the remembrance of Allah (Dhikr). Firstly, scholars consider touching genitals by mouth as discouraged mentioning the reason that, touching genitals by the right hand rather than the left hand has been prohibited by Muhammad; as in their opinion, the mouth is comparatively more honorable than the right hand, for that touching genitals with the mouth is more abhorrent and vacatably excluded. Secondly, the status of genital secretions is debated among the four Sunni schools, some scholars viewing it as impure and others not.
Currently, sodomy is punishable by death in a number of Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as in Nigeria's Sharia courts.
Incest.
Hadith forbids incestous relationship ("zinā bi'l-mahārim"), sexual intercourse between someone who is mahram and prescribes execution as punishment.
Masturbation.
Islamic scripture does not specifically mention masturbation. There are a few "Hadiths" mentioning it, but these are classified as unreliable.
Bestiality.
According to hadith, bestiality is defined under "zina" and its punishment is execution of the accused man or woman along with the animal.
Inclusions in the definition.
"Zina" encompasses any sexual intercourse except that between husband and wife. It includes both extramarital sex and premarital sex, and is often translated as "fornication" in English.
Technically, "zina" only refers to the act of penetration, while non-penetrative sex acts outside of marriage were censured by the Prophet as that which can lead to "zina".
According to sharia, the punishment for "zina" varies according to whether the offender is "muhsan" (adult, free, Muslim and married at least once) or not "muhsan" (i.e. a minor, a slave, a non-Muslim or never married). A person only qualifies as "muhsan" if he or she meets all of the criteria. The punishment for an offender who is "muhsan" is stoning to death ("rajm"); the punishment for an offender who is not "muhsan" is 100 lashes. 
Accusation process and punishment.
Islamic law requires evidence before a man or a woman can be punished for "zina". These are:
If a pregnant woman confesses that her baby was born from an illegal relationship then she will be subject to conviction in the Islamic courts. In cases where there are no witnesses and no confession then the woman will not receive punishment just because of pregnancy. Women can fall pregnant without committing illegal sexual intercourse. A woman could be raped or coerced. In this case, she is a victim and not the perpetrator of a crime. Therefore, she cannot be punished or even accused of misconduct merely on the strength of her falling pregnant.
The four witnesses requirement for "zina" is revealed by Quranic verses 24:11 through 24:13 and various hadiths. The testimony of women and non-Muslims is not admitted in cases of "zina" or in other "hadd" crimes.
Any witness to or victim of non-consensual sexual intercourse, who accuses a Muslim of "zina", but fails to produce four adult, pious male eyewitnesses before a sharia court, commits the crime of false accusation ("Qadhf", القذف), punishable with eighty lashes in public.
These requirements made "zina" virtually impossible to prove in practice. Hence, there are very few recorded examples of stoning for "zina" being legally carried out. In the 623-year history of the Ottoman Empire, the best-documented and most well-known pre-modern Islamic legal system, there is only one recorded example of the stoning punishment being applied for "zina", when a Muslim woman and her Jewish lover were convicted of "zina" in 1680 and sentenced to death, the woman by stoning and the man by beheading. This was a miscarriage of justice according to the standards of Islamic law: adequate evidence was not produced, and the correct penalty for non-Muslims was 100 lashes rather than death.
Some schools of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) created the principle of "shubha" (doubt). According to this principle, if there is room for doubt in the perpetrator's mind about whether the sexual act was illegal, he or she should not receive the hadd penalty, but could receive a less severe punishment at the discretion of the judge. Jurists had varying opinions on what counted as legitimate "doubt" for this purposes. A typical example is a man who has sex with his wife's or his son's slave. This is "zina" - a man can lawfully have sex only with his own slave. But a man might plausibly believe that he had ownership rights over his wife's or his son's property, and so think that having sex with their slaves was legal. The Ḥanafī jurists of the Ottoman Empire applied the concept of doubt to exempt prostitution from the hadd penalty. Their rationale was that since legal sex is legitimized, in part, by payment (the dower paid by the husband to the wife upon marriage, or the purchase price of a slave), a man might plausibly believe that prostitution, which also involves a payment in return for sexual access, was legal. It is important to note that this principle did not mean that such acts were treated as legal: they remained offenses, and could be punished, but they were not liable for the hadd penalty of 100 lashes or stoning.
Sunni practice.
All Sunni schools of jurisprudence agree that "zināa" is to be punished with stoning to death if the offender is a free, adult, married or previously married Muslim ("muhsan"). Persons who are not "muhsan" (i.e. a slave, a minor, never married or non-Muslim) are punished for "zina" with one hundred lashes in public.
Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence considers pregnancy as sufficient and automatic evidence, unless there is evidence of rape. Other Sunni schools of jurisprudence rely on early Islamic scholars that state that a fetus can "sleep and stop developing for 5 years in a womb", and thus a woman who was previously married but now divorced may not have committed "zina" even if she delivers a baby years after her divorce. The also argue that the woman may have been forced or coerced (see section above, 'Accusation process and punishment').The position of modern Islamic scholars varies from country to country. For example, in Malaysia which officially follows the Shafi'i fiqh, Section 23(2) through 23(4) of the Syariah (Sharia) Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997 state,
Minimal proof for "zina" is still the testimony of four male eyewitnesses, even in the case of homosexual intercourse.
Prosecution of extramarital pregnancy as "zina", as well as prosecution of rape victims for the crime of "zina", have been the source of worldwide controversy in recent years.
Shi'a practice.
Again, minimal proof for zina" is the testimony of four male eyewitnesses. The Shi'is, however, also allow the testimony of women, if there is "at least one male witness", testifying together with "six women". All witnesses must have seen the act in its most intimate details, i.e. the penetration (like "a stick disappearing in a kohl container," as the fiqh books specify). If their testimonies do not satisfy the requirements, they can be sentenced to eighty lashes for unfounded accusation of fornication (kadhf). If the accused freely admits the offense, the confession must be repeated "four" times, just as in Sunni practice. Pregnancy of a single woman is also sufficient evidence of her having committed "zina".
Human rights controversy.
The "zina" and rape laws of countries under Sharia law are the subjects of a global human rights debate.
Hundreds of women in Afghan jails are victims of rape or domestic violence. This has been criticized as leading to "hundreds of incidents where a woman subjected to rape, or gang rape, was eventually accused of zināʾ" and incarcerated.
In Pakistan, over 200,000 "zina" cases against women, under its Hudood laws, were under process at various levels in Pakistan's legal system in 2005. In addition to thousands of women in prison awaiting trial for "zina"-related charges, there has been a severe reluctance to even report rape because the victim fears of being charged with "zina".
Iran has prosecuted many cases of "zina", and enforced public stoning to death of those accused between 2001 and 2010.
"Zina" laws are one of many items of reform and secularization debate with respect to Islam. In the early 20th century, under the influence of colonial era, many penal laws and criminal justice systems were reformed away from Sharia in Muslim-majority parts of the world. In contrast, in the second half of the 20th century, after respective independence, a number of governments including Pakistan, Morocco, Malaysia and Iran have reverted to Sharia with traditional interpretations of Islam's sacred texts. "Zina" and hudud laws have been re-enacted and enforced.
Contemporary human right activists refer this as a new phase in the politics of gender in Islam, the battle between forces of traditionalism and modernism in the Muslim world, and the use of religious texts of Islam through state laws to sanction and practice gender-based violence.
In contrast to human rights activists, Islamic scholars and Islamist political parties consider 'universal human rights' arguments as imposition of a non-Muslim culture on Muslim people, a disrespect of customary cultural practices and sexual codes that are central to Islam. "Zina" laws come under hudud seen as crime against Allah; the Islamists refer to this pressure and proposals to reform "zina" and other laws as contrary to Islam. Attempts by international human rights to reform religious laws and codes of Islam has become the Islamist rallying platforms during political campaigns.