Bismillah: Assalamo Alikum.
Quote:Just out of curiosity SisterJennifer, do you know what the punishment for Zina is in Islam ? Let's just suppose for a minute that this girl was a muslim in a muslim country governed by sharia, and this muslim girl had been caught having zina, and the girl was found guilty by a sharia court in accordance with sharia law, what do you suppose the punishment would be ?
Firstly, the following rules must be followed perfectly before any punishment.
The answer is taken from IslamOnline.Net
<b>Proving Zina</b>
A person is convicted of zina by one or more of the following ways:
1- If the fornicator makes a confession without going back on his or her word until he or she is subjected to any prescribed punishment. If at some stage the person retracts the confession, <b>he or she must not be subjected to any prescribed punishment. </b>
2- <b>The testimony to the act of four reliable and pious men</b>, each of whom must testify that he actually saw the man's sexual organ inserted into the woman's vagina. This stringent condition is to protect innocent Muslims and to block the road for those who want to spread evil among the Muslim society.
3- If a woman who is not married is found pregnant.
There are definite prescribed punishments known as hadd (plural: hudud), which have been mentioned in the Qur'an and the Sunnah concerning those who engage in the criminal act. The following conditions must be fulfilled before the hadd is applied:
<b>1. The offenders must be sane.</b>
2. They must be Muslims.
3. They have reached the age of puberty.
4. They must be free and not slaves.
The Qur'anic injunctions with regards to those who commit zina were revealed in stages. The wisdom behind this was to make these injunctions acceptable to the new converts to Islam who often engaged in zina during the days of ignorance. The first revelation concerning the punishment of zina was that a woman guilty of zina was to be confined to her home until she die (<b>An-Nisaa' 4:15</b>). The second revelation covered both men and women and was not very specific regarding punishment:
<b>[And as for the two who are guilty of indecency from among you, give them both a punishment; then if they repent and amend, turn aside from them; surely Allah is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.]</b> (An-Nisaa' 4:16)
Allah Almighty then revealed:
<b>[(As for) the fornicatress and the fornicator, flog each of them, (giving) a hundred stripes, and let not pity for them detain you in the matter of obedience to Allah and the last day.] </b> (An-Nur 24:2)
<b>Know that punishment for this crime of zina acts as atonement for this sin.</b> The idea behind the harsh and severe punishment does not contradict the spirit of Islam; it actually serves as a deterrent in society. It protects a person's family lineage and the spread of moral decadence and disease in society. When people realize the graveness of their sin, and that its punishment is most humiliating and painful, very few would dare to commit it.
So if we "<i>suppose for a minute that this girl was a muslim</i>" then <b>she should not be punished at all,</b> because according to the link provided by CC, <b>this girl has been stoned to death because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion</b>, it does not mention that she actually committed fornication.
Hope this answer your question john. Insh a Allah.
Salam
Wael.