Somali woman mercilessly stoned to death

This Islam is strange

This aspect of Islam is one I find so unfamiliar and devoid of any iota humanity, it loses the real function of religion and lets a kind of evil barbarity lose on a hapless people.

A 20-year old “adulteress” was stoned in Somalia [1] whilst her boyfriend was given 100 lashes of the blessed rod for his sins.

Sometimes I wonder who gives the judges the domineering influence over people to the extent that they can take life without mercy on the premise of the adherence to a religion or creed.

My Muslim heritage

At the risk of being labelled as someone who does not understand the vagaries of Islam or Sharia law, it is really beside the point that I do have a Muslim heritage in that my paternal grandfather was Muslim and so is my uncle.

If I ever met any two people who ooze with humanity, compassion and humility, I would put those two Muslims at the front of the line, so it really baffles me when I hear of these rather heinous acts of crime and punishment procedures that terrorise people in conformity rather than persuade of them of a goodly situation.

Does Sharia law know mercy?

This was a 20-year old girl who really could have been mercifully forgiven, put under the care of a matriarch who could help her mend her “immoral” ways and make her a better citizen in the society in which she lives.

In fact, the harbingers of “real” Sharia law whose outlook does not include the concept of leniency surely should in their prayers for mercy and forgiveness to God not expect to find any mercy from the god they worship, who in their minds allows for this kind of violence in the name of justice and purity.

Casting the first stone

What I even find most primitive as to label it Neanderthal is that they can find people who would willingly pick up stones and stone a half-buried woman to death with all the blood, screaming and goriness of it all – is our humanity really that inured to any feeling that people cannot for once constrain themselves and jointly appeal for some sympathy?

At this point one wishes there were a Rabbi like in the times of Jesus [2] who whilst not condoning the adulteress highlighted the fact that sin is sin, from the little white lie to the seemingly egregious act of adultery. He sanctioned the punishment of stoning but asked that the one without sin cast the first stone – even amongst the most pious of the adherents in Somalia, none can be so pure to have been able to cast the first stone.

Entertained with death

In what can only be a kind of bizarre sense of satisfaction, no men ever get stoned for adultery – women always seem to get the rotten end of justice – as if the public enjoy the wail of death as the woman’s blood gets splattered all over the ground and the judges applaud themselves for having such great control over the people.

The last thought in this matter should be deep enough for anyone to understand and it must be true for all intents and purposes in this world and hereafter. “They who show no mercy, no matter what cause they stand for; deserve no mercy ever.”

Sources

[1] BBC News : Somali woman stoned for adultery

[2] John 8:3-11 - Passage Lookup - New Living Translation - BibleGateway.com

Stoners required for Sharia execution

Punishing crime against women

Crime and violence against women is still something men and society seem to be able to do with impunity in Africa, one report suggests it is seldom punished. There are civilising voices that are being raised to highlight these issues and bring focus to the need for radical and positive change.

Unfortunately, one such voice for change in the blogging community seems to have lost the desire to continue this thankless activity and I very well sympathise, social issues in Africa cannot gain prominence where the quest for basic survival is the primary pre-occupation.

Apathy reigns whilst hedonistic pursuits leave us in need for things to improve our society and raise our quality of life, one would miss the voice of Black Looks on these matters.

Sharia in the headlines

The law and religion collide again in Nigeria's north where a man has been sentenced to be stoned to death by Sharia Law.

His heinous crime is the forcible raping of two teenage girls, an act he committed with an accomplice who got off lightly with just a six-month sentence.

I would not argue the disproportionate difference in sentencing, as to how a rapist and an accomplice cannot both be accessories to the same crime and how not even a corporal punishment element appears in the sentencing of the supposedly lesser criminal.

The logic escapes me that the horridness of the crime of rape has been belittled in some way that would make it arguable for a participant in encouraging a rape might get off quite so lightly. Am I expressing surprise at Sharia judgements being so lenient?

There is a risk of imputing tribalism, in noting the ambiguous name of the main criminal which is indeterminately Southern Nigerian (Ade Debo) as compared with the more Northerly sounding and Muslim name of the accomplice (Shagari Abubakar), but I would contend that greater principles of due legal process, albeit Sharia Law prevailed in the execution of justice and judgement.

The punishment

In the West, rapists do get quite stiff sentences, even up to life imprisonment, in America, it would exact a capital punishment, especially if it leads to murder - I would argue that rape should and must be severely punished if proven.

The points of interest arise when you hear the proclamation of the judge; Aliyu Mohammed, "For your action, you will be stoned to death as ordained by Allah".

I would not dispute this statement, but how many times have we seen certain actions of men carried out in the name of God so as to be considered credible, unassailable and inviolable.

The we read that the men have 30 days to appeal the sentence where man in the assumed capacity of Allah can commute what Allah ordained to a lesser punishment - maybe I am being a bit pedantic here.

Are you a stoner at heart?

If the sentence does not get commuted, in the 21^st Century, would there be a wolf pack of Nigerians available to pick up specially selected stones to throw at a fellow human-being till he were dead?

Would people be compelled by their Islamic leaders to do the Allah-ordained task of stoning or face the wrath of Allah?

Surely the execution of criminals should be the function of the state and this should be carried out in a humane and civilised manner, to set this activity in the marketplace of a mob of bloodthirsty people creating images too savage for Allan Quatermain's Africa is beyond the pale.

The bizarre nature of this whole thing would be if certain adherents of Sharia principles offer their services as professional "stoners", or rather, they are catalysts that help instigate and encourage the mob to pick up stones and finish off the criminal as he bellows out blood-curdling screams of pain to the hearing of inured children.

The role of civil law

We should punish crime appropriately, but at this juncture, civil law is probably the better tool to handle cases like this than traditional religious methods which would take the focus away from the crime and place it on the criminal as activists move to prevent this sentence from being carried out.

Somehow, Sharia Law does have its place in society, but it also has to adapt to modern values in such a way that social matters are handled with the adjudication of the Sharia court whilst felonies and serious criminal matters are forwarded to the civil law division.

The way Sharia Law grabs the headlines when these punishments are given persuades people to highlight the fossilised aspects of this code of conduct and creates resistance to the more civilising forces for social cohesion that Sharia Law might bring to communities.

The only progress I have seen in this matter is where the female victims of this sex crime have not been charged with some absurd offence of encouraging the rape; amazing perspective, but too valid in Africa to be ignored.