Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Hammudah Abd al-Ati, Islam in Focus

(Beltsville, Md.: Amana Publications, 1998); Scott L. 

Marcus,  Music in Egypt: Experiencing Music, Express-

ing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); 

Likayat A. Takim, “From Bida to Sunna: The Wilaya of 

Ali in the Shii Adhan.” Journal of the American Oriental 

Society 120 (2000): 166–177.

adultery

Sexual intercourse with someone other than one’s 

marriage partner is called zina (adultery) in 

Arabic. In the 

sharia

  zina encompasses not only 

adultery but any sexual act among two people 

who are not married to each other. Pre-Islamic 

Arabian society may have considered zina as one 

of several acceptable forms of marriage, but Islam 

brought an end to these multiple forms. For men, 

the only exception to zina concerns sexual inter-

course with the female slaves under their owner-

ship, which is allowable (although not common 

practice today).

Adultery is a grave offense in Islam, as it 

undermines the basic foundation of Muslim soci-

etal organization—the legal contract of marriage 

by which two partners are bound to each other 

exclusively by clearly delimited rights and obliga-

tions. Among these rights and duties is exclusive 

sexual access to one’s spouse, so as to prevent pro-

miscuity and social disorder. The q

Uran

 includes 

numerous references on the subject, most notably 

Q 24:2, which pronounces the fixed hadd punish-