What is zināʾ?
Q: What is zināʾ?
A: Zināʾ (زِنَاء) or zina (زِنًى or زِنًا) is an Islamic law concerning unlawful sexual relations between male and female who are not married to one another through a nikah. It includes extramarital sex, premarital sex, adultery, fornication, and homosexuality.
Q: How is zināʾ punished in Sharia law?
A: In the four schools of Sunni fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), and the two schools of Shi'a fiqh, the term zināʾ is a sin of sexual intercourse that is not allowed by Sharia (Islamic law) and classed as a hudud crime (class of Islamic punishments that are fixed for certain crimes that are considered to be "claims of God").
Q: What types of evidence can be used to prove an act of zina?
A: To prove an act of zina, a qadi (religious judge) in a sharia court relies on an unmarried woman's pregnancy, the confession in the name of Allah, or four witnesses to the actual act of penetration. The last two types of prosecutions are uncommon. Most cases of zina in the history of Islam have been pregnant unmarried women.
Q: What happens if there aren't enough eyewitnesses to testify before the court?
A: If there aren't enough eyewitnesses to testify before the court then pressing charges without required eyewitnesses is considered slander (Qadhf, القذف) in Islam which itself is also a hudud crime.
Q: Is Zina related to any other words with similar spelling?
A: The above sense of zina should not be confused with the woman's name Zina or Zeina (زينة). The name has a different linguistic root (Greek xen-), it has a different meaning ("guest, stranger"), it's pronounced differently (either Zīnah or Zaynah), and it's usually spelled differently.
Q: Are men accused more often than women when it comes to accusations involving Zina?
A: Yes - most cases involving accusations about Zina involve pregnant unmarried women rather than men.
