The question/claim: "The Qur'an orders 100 lashes for adultery (24:2). Isn't a punishment inflicted on the body — by modern human-rights standards — torture / inhuman treatment? And it even says, 'let no pity for them take hold of you in the religion of Allah' (24:2) — doesn't that sound merciless and severe? On top of that, stoning (rajm) is added."
Context
The verse is explicit:
"The adulteress and the adulterer — flog each of them a hundred lashes; and let no pity for them take hold of you in the religion of Allah…" (24:2)
Yet this verse is not a stand-alone "execution recipe"; the surrounding verses set it inside a system that renders it nearly inapplicable:
- Proof requirement: The offence is established only by four eyewitnesses. An accuser who cannot produce four is himself flogged 80 lashes for slander (qadhf) and his testimony is rejected (24:4). So making an unprovable accusation brings the punishment back onto the accuser.
- Door of repentance: Those who then repent and reform are excepted: "except those who repent after that and reform; indeed Allah is Forgiving, Merciful" (24:5).
- Liʿān between spouses: When there are no witnesses between husband and wife, mutual oath-swearing (liʿān) applies; the wife's four sworn testimonies, sealed by a fifth oath invoking Allah's wrath upon the lying party, lift the punishment from her (24:6-9).
- Historical gradation: At an earlier stage, Sūrat an-Nisāʾ prescribes confining the women at home as a temporary measure and says "…or Allah makes a way for them" (4:15); if the two repent and reform, it orders turning away from them, i.e. dropping the penalty (4:16).
Two readings
Classical fiqh (the majority of jurists): Abū Ḥanīfa, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal restrict the "hundred lashes" of 24:2 to the unmarried and reserve stoning (rajm) for the married, basing stoning not on the Qur'an but on the Prophet's practice/sunna (Diyanet, tafsir of Nūr 24:2; TDV "Had"). The same school deliberately makes proof nearly impossible: the slightest doubt drops the ḥadd ("al-ḥudūd tudraʾ bi-l-shubuhāt" — the ḥadd penalties are averted by doubt). Hence even in the classical era stoning is said to have been applied vanishingly rarely (interpretation).
Qur'an-centred / academic reading: Mehmet Okuyan, the Süleymaniye Foundation (Abdülaziz Bayındır) and similar lines hold that the only Qur'anic penalty for adultery is the 100 lashes of 24:2, and that stoning is not in the Qur'an (interpretation). On this reading the penalty arrived by gradual lightening: the "home confinement" of 4:15 is an interim measure, "Allah makes a way" is the door opening onto 24:2, and 4:16 lifts the penalty upon repentance. The Süleymaniye Foundation further argues that, through the text's own definiteness, the ruling binds everyone without a married/unmarried distinction (interpretation). A further proof: 4:25 assigns the bondwoman "half the penalty of a free chaste woman"; only lashing can be halved, and since stoning cannot be divided, the ḥadd cannot be stoning (interpretation). The Diyanet tafsir itself relays an alternative view: the 100 lashes are the general ḥadd, while penalties like stoning/exile fall under variable taʿzīr (Diyanet, tafsir of Nūr 24:2).
Honest limit
- Where the objection is right: 100 lashes, as bare text, is a bodily and severe penalty; by modern human-rights standards it is open to challenge under the ban on torture / inhuman treatment (interpretation). Ignoring this is not honest.
- What the text settles: The text explicitly commands lashing (24:2), and "let no pity take hold of you" presupposes that the penalty is meant to be applicable. So treating the ruling as purely symbolic overreaches the wording (interpretation).
- What remains contested interpretation: Whether this is "a severe flogging" or "a deterrent system" depends on the reading. The alternative reading looks at applicability: four eyewitnesses make proof nearly impossible (24:4), the accuser who fails is punished with 80 lashes, the door of repentance is open (24:5; 4:16), and inter-spousal accusation is bound to oaths to protect privacy (24:6-9). On this framing the ruling reads less as an instrument of execution than as a system that deters slander against chastity and violation of privacy, all but taking proof off the table (interpretation).
- On stoning: If the objection targets stoning (rajm), the common ground of both classical and modern sides is this: stoning is not in the Qur'anic text (see the related article for detail). If it targets the lashing, then the weight of the ruling and the weight of the proof requirement must be weighed together.
Related articles
- Is stoning (rajm) in the Qur'an?
- Is a woman's testimony half?
- The verses of violence
- The bondwoman / mulk al-yamīn question
Source: Qur'anic verses (M. Okuyan meal). Presented soberly and respectfully, with a text/interpretation distinction.