100 lashes of the whip; Islamic punishment for ‘crime’ of zina-Join Dr. Mustapha Hamid

The Chief Executive Officer of the National Petroleum Authority will today, Thursday, March 30, 2023, present a paper on this insightful issue at the GIMPA Law faculty Workshop/Colloquium series.

“To repent or to die? An examination of the ‘crime’ of Zina in Islam’ will be dissected by the speaker, who happens to be a Religion expert and former lecturer at the University of Cape Coast.

He will in this paper make a point that there is only one punishment prescribed in Islam for the ‘crime’ of zina which is a hundred lashes of whip contrary to the view held by some Islamic jurists.

This paper will also focus on adultery and its attendant punishment of stoning to death and argue that the distinction of illicit sex by some Islamic jurists is without merit and therefore the prescription of stoning to death as punishment for adultery is without canonical basis.

Zina is the Arabic word for illicit sex. Illicit sex is sex between two people who are not married to each other. Illicit sex is considered not just a sin, but a crime in Islam, for which earthly punishment is exacted. In Islamic jurisprudence, crimes for which earthly punishments are exacted are classified into two- hudud and ta’zir. 

Hudud crimes are crimes for which the punishments are explicitly stated in the Qur’an. Illicit sex is considered a hudud sin/crime because the punishment for illicit sex is explicitly stated in the Qur’an. 

However, Islamic jurists have come to categorize illicit sex into fornication and adultery and have determined that the punishment for adultery is stoning to death.

The lecture comes off at exactly 4:30p.m virtually and in person at the GIMPA Moot courtroom.