Illegal Sex (fornication)
The punishment for illegal sex (premarital sex, adultery during marriage) is stated in the Qur'an:
"The fornicator and the fornicatrix, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment proscribed by God, if you believe in God and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment." (Qur'an 24: 2)
One thing of note here is that the Qur'an orders that punishments are carried out in public and not secretly to act as a deterrent to others and to ensure the punishment was meted out correctly and fairly.
The requirement of four witnesses to any act of illegal sex (zina) means that in reality it is seldom punished other than when the perpetrators confess. If a person makes accusation of others committing zina and he is unable to bring along four witnesses to the act, then such person is liable to 80 stripes as punishment for the slander, as without witnesses it is not regarded as an accusation to be made lightly and intended to discourage rumour-mongering (see Qur'an 24: 4)
Read more about this topic: Islamic Sexual Jurisprudence
Famous quotes containing the word illegal:
“No more astounding relic of the subjection of women survives in western civilization than the status of the prostitute.... In connection with what other illegal vice is the seller alone penalized, and not the buyer?”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)