HJS comments: Endnote references below are courtesy of Ideology of Islam; I agree with the references. We may ask, “Why are the Iranians hanging on to laws and punishments that have been extant since the 7th century?” The answer is not pure and simple, but twists and turns as we look at such ideas through the prisms of tradition, culture, religion, and perhaps a bit of practicality.
The traditions of many nations in the 7th century were relatively barbaric by today’s standards. Not all jurists or chief executives of nations subscribed to the idea of reforming rather than retaliating. Even scanning the sharia today shows a surprising number of rules for retaliating for specific people, under differing circumstances. The cultures of many nations today are part of their religion; it is difficult to determine why some practices are part of a particular religion, Islam, since the observance of these practices appears to be in direct violation of religious teachings. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a case in point. Honor killing is another case in point. In the latter cases, it is normal for the remains to completely disappear, and the name of the victim to be deleted from all records, as if she (normally it would be a female) never existed, so the killing never happened. Practicality only enters the picture whenever one calculates the number of personal laws there are, laws against God as opposed to laws against the State, the number of people living under these laws, and the number of prisons Iran or any other nation would need to incarcerate the “guilty”. You might want to know that under the Sharia, it is no crime to take the life of your children or their children, so honor killing is usually not a crime to Muslims. So, western states with a large Muslim population must be ready to deal with those crimes according to that State’s laws, and forget about what the sharia says. Many States are afraid to do that because, “It’s a religious thing.” Baloney! Book ‘em, Dan’l! In Muslim lands, people who are not Muslims are not protected by the sharia unless they accept the status of Dhimmi (3rd class citizen) and pay the jizya tax under humiliating circumstances for the limited protection that the status offers.
Their body of laws, the sharia is largely based on the Qur’an and the Sunna. One cannot even consider words like “change” and “reform” in Islam. You might want to know that Qur’an 33:57 is interpreted to justify the immediate killing of anyone insulting the Qur’an, or insulting their prophet or their religion itself. Using the words “change” or “reform” are considered by many Muslims an insult to the Qur’an, the prophet, and the religion. Therefore, it would be necessary for each concerned nation to develop a more modern body of laws completely independent of the Qur’an and the Sunna. If anyone wishes to start a civil war somewhere, that is one way to do it.
Now that wasn’t difficult to understand. Or was it?
· AUGUST 5, 2010 Wall Street Journal
Iran's 7th-Century Justice
Iran's penal code reserves the harshest punishments for women.
· By SHIRIN EBADI
The harrowing case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani—a mother of two sentenced to stoning by an Iranian court for adultery—has rightfully drawn attention to Iran's draconian penal code, which reserves its cruelest punishments for women. Even Tehran's new political ally, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, has been roused into action, publicly offering Ms. Ashtiani asylum in his country.
Iran has yet to respond formally, and a foreign leader can have no direct bearing on a domestic legal proceeding. But the intervention—a direct appeal to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—demonstrates that the Islamic Republic's human rights record can't be divorced from its nuclear diplomacy.
Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, in the years when I worked as a judge in Iran, consensual sexual relations between adults did not figure in the country's criminal code. But the revolution enacted a version of Islamic law extraordinarily harsh even by the standards of the Muslim world[i]. Under the new regime, extramarital sex was a crime punishable by law. The punishment for a single man or woman guilty of sex outside marriage became 100 lashes; under Article 86, the punishment for a married person became death by stoning.
On the face of things, stoning is not a gender-specific punishment, for the law stipulates that adulterous men face the same brutal end. But Iranian law permits polygamy, so it offers men an escape route. Because Iranian law recognizes "marriages" of even a few hours between men and single women, men can claim that their adulterous relationships are in fact temporary marriages. By exploiting this escape clause, men are rarely sentenced to stoning. Married women accused of adultery have access to no such reprieve.
Iran's legal codes are studded with inconsistencies and vagaries that make due process virtually impossible. For example, if a man or woman commits adultery while being denied sexual access to a spouse due to travel or other prolonged separation, 100 lashes suffice as punishment. But the law does not specify the duration of acceptable separation, so judges are left with discretion over whether to lash adulterers or stone them.
Stoning can also be reduced to lashes when a married woman has sex with a minor. (Iranian law considers the age of maturation for girls nine, and for boys 15.[ii]) Thus a married woman who commits adultery with a 40-year-old man must be sentenced to stoning, but one who commits the same act with a 15-year-old—taking sexual advantage of a minor—is accorded a legal break.
Iranian judges can hand down a stoning verdict without the testimony of a personal plaintiff; if it can be proven that a man or woman has committed adultery, the transgressor can be stoned even if the betrayed spouse offers his or her forgiveness.
Article 105 of the penal code, meanwhile, enables a judge to sentence an adulterer to stoning based only on his "knowledge." As such, a judge can sentence a woman simply based on her husband's complaint.
These glaring lapses are only the most obvious reasons why Iran must reconsider its practice of such an ancient punishment, which most Islamic countries long ago discarded in their quest to harmonize Islam with modern norms.[iii] Stoning has long been criticized by Islamic jurists, most notably the Iranian Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei. These jurists believe that such punishment was meted out during Islam's early history—in the 7th-century desert of Saudi Arabia—in accordance with the customs of the time. But the Koran makes no mention of stoning, jurists note, so lighter punishments such as imprisonment or fine can be considered[iv]. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been indifferent to such arguments—and to the outcry of lawyers and activists. Perhaps chastisement from a powerful ally like Brazil will force Tehran to consider whether its adherence to such practices serves its national interests.
Iran tries to limit international knowledge of its brutality by not announcing stoning verdicts publicly. Only slowly and by word of mouth do stoning cases make their way to media in Iran and sometimes elsewhere. A year and a half ago, Iranian media reported that a man was executed by stoning in the city of Qazvin. We cannot know how many Iranians have been killed by such punishment in the past three decades[v]. Sakineh Ashtiani may become one more. Others are in her position, but how many, no one knows.
Ms. Ebadi, founder of the Center for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.
[i] [NOTE: This is because most of the Muslim world is ruled by semi-secular dictatorships, not by Islamic religious authorities.]
[ii] [NOTE: The reason for this is to follow the example of Muhammad who married a 6-year old girl and had sex with her beginning when she was 9.]
[iii] [NOTE: A vain quest. Islamic norms cannot be changed. A government can decide to deviate from the Islamic norms in the name of modernity.]
[iv] . [NOTE: The Koran does not mention stoning, but the sacred sayings of Muhammad do call for stoning which has been standard Sharia law for over a thousand years.]
[v] [NOTE: If you have not yet seen the movie, "The Stoning of Soraya M", don't miss it. You can order it on Netflix.]
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