Stoning of Soraya M Stoning is not prescribed in the current version of the Koran. Islamic law (Sharia) requires that adulterers be put to death, since it was the example set by Muhammad. In practice, the women are executed far more often, since they are presumed to bear the burden of sexual responsibility. Rape victims are sometimes convicted if they speak out. Reporting a rape means a confession of adultery under Sharia law if four male witnesses cannot be found to confirm the victim's claim. Numerous examples of stoning adulterers under Islamic law persist, from the Islamist frontier of Somalia to the modern state of Iran. In 2010, the Taliban planted a couple having unauthorized sex in the ground and brutally pelted them with stones only a few days after they flogged a pregnant woman 200 times and then shot her in the head. In "condemning" the killings, the "moderate" president of Afghanistan would only say that they were wrong because they were not preceded by a trial ("Stoning Adulterers," NDI).

The story of Soraya...

According to Sahebjam (Cannon, 2010) Soraya had been bartered away in an arranged marriage at the age of 13 to Ghordan-Ali, 20. The couple had nine children over the next two decades, two stillborn births, and was regularly beaten and insulted by her husband who consorted with prostitutes and endeavored to turn their two oldest sons against her.
Briefly in the chaotic days of the Iranian revolution Ghorban-Ali found work as a prison guard in a neighboring town and there met a 14-year-old girl whom he wanted to marry. While polygamy was permissible in Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran Ghorban-Ali did not want to support two wives and did not want to return his wife's dowry.…