Who's right Islam and Stoning and Hollywood ?
A powerful new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., is calling public attention to the Islamic practice of stoning adulterers in a way that only Hollywood can; while at least eight women await death by stoning in Iran today, none of their cases have drawn any significant protests from human rights organizations, and Western governments have remained largely indifferent. With a genocidally inclined nuclear Iran looming on the international stage, the victimization of women by Islamic laws prescribing stoning for adultery and other sexual crimes may seem to be the least of our worries. The Stoning of Soraya M., however, graphically depicts the terrible human cost of the outside world’s indifference to the stoning that are still practiced in Iran and elsewhere in the Islamic world. Yet despite this superb film’s immense power to challenge this barbaric human rights abuse, reviewers and even people connected with the film are rushing to divert attention away from or downplay the root causes of the crime the film indelibly depicts -- and by doing so, are condemning more women to suffer Soraya’s fate.
For example, actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays a pivotal role as the victim’s friend, recently said that stoning has “been happening since the Stone Age, in Judaism, Christianity, Islam.” She added that “stoning isn’t mentioned in the Koran,” and that “it has nothing to do with Islam. It’s under the category of superstitions and traditions, but obviously those who have hijacked Islam are manipulating people and using this as an Islamic law. It is not, really.”
In reality, stoning has everything to do with Islam and Islamic law. The caliph Umar, one of Muhammad’s closest companions and his second successor as leader of the Islamic community, maintained that it was originally in Islam’s holy book, the Koran, and lamented: “I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, ‘We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,’ and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed.” He emphasized that Muhammad stoned adulterers, and that therefore Muslims should do so as well.
