Background: Some think that ‘stoning to death’ is a punishment laid out in The Quran or promoted by Islam for acts such as adultery.
The Quran never sanctions stoning to death as a punishment for anyone. In fact, the only times it is mentioned in The Quran is as a threat to believers from non-believers:
11:91, 18:20, 19:46, 36:18, 44:20, 26:116
Also, the misconception of ‘stoning to death’ as punishment for adultery is disproved by The Quran as the punishment for proven adultery are lashes [24:2]. Furthermore, this punishment is halved for formerly slave woman due to their past circumstance [4:25]. Since half ‘stoning to death’ is not possible, this indicates ‘stoning to death’ for adultery is not permitted.
Interestingly, in many popular translations of The Quran, for verse 24:3 they state an adulterer can only marry another adulterer, but if stoning to death for adultery was a punishment, this translation would be unecessary and illogical.
Stoning to death as a punishment for adultery is from traditional narrations (called “hadith”) attributed to the prophet Muhammad, as recorded by later generations.
READ – click to look up verse references
