control and sexuality

Control and Sexuality: The Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contextsas ‘state feminism’ (White 2003: 154; Kadıoğlu 1994: 651) – an ideological projectthat, while granting or expanding numerous important human rights to women(to vote, to work, to be formally equal to men, to education, etc.), primarily aimed atexploiting them as the key nation-building symbol of ‘modern republicanism’ (White2003; İlkkaracan 2008). The state, hence, remained little if at all interested in genderjustice, aside from its ‘cosmetic effects’, and the new legislation, civil and criminalalike, continued to carry strong patriarchal bias, implicitly based on the Ottoman fiqh(Yıldırım 2005; İlkkaracan 2008). This was significantly altered only recently, when thesustained advocacy of numerous women’s human rights organisations led to the new2001 Civil Code and 2004 Criminal Code (İlkkaracan 2008).Stoning to death or rejm (rajm) for zina offences apparently occurred just once in theOttoman Empire in the 17 th century (Koçak 2010; Zürcher & van der Linden 2004),when it was effectively replaced with much lesser punishments, which were also rarelyenforced (Shalakany 2008). All other hudud crimes were abolished by the 1858 PenalCode, except capital punishment for apostasy (Koçak 2010: 236). Adultery remained aminor offence in the Turkish Republic for a long time, until Articles 441 (criminalisingmen) and 440 (criminalising women) of the 1926 Penal Code were abolished by theTurkish Constitutional Court, in 1996 and 1998 respectively. However, the 1858Ottoman Penal Code pardoned (Article 188) and the 1926 Penal Code reduced (Article462) the punishment for ‘honour’ killing one’s allegedly adulterous spouse. The latterprovision was in force until 2004. Thus, the concept of zina as an offence, which in localpatriarchal traditions translates to crimes against the ‘honour’ of one’s family, survivedin the Turkish social and legal milieux. While official prosecutions are no longer possible,zina and other ‘honour-related’ acts are still regularly punished by death by the victims’closest family members. Every year, hundreds of women are brutally murdered inTurkey in the name of honour (Kaser 2008: 207; Turkish Daily News 2008; Kardam2005). Increasing instances of suicide, including self-immolation, have also been linkedto so-called ‘honour’ crimes. This reveals, in the most dramatic way, the state’s overallincapability to translate its formal legislative human rights commitments into effectivepolicies against the patriarchal ethos, which permeates all spheres of Turkish society.In the year 1680, a woman convicted of zina was being stoned to death on Sultan AhmetSquare (Sultanahmet Meydanı) in İstanbul, in front of Sultan Mehmet IV. Deeply disturbedby the cruelty of the deed, the Sultan reportedly proclaimed: “From now on, I do not wantsuch disgrace in the Ottoman lands” (Koçak 2010: 234; Toprak 2003: 118). Henceforth,indeed, rajm was no more in the mighty caliphate. That this particular hadd was soeasily abrogated by an Ottoman ruler comes as no surprise. Based on their customarypowers as caliphs (i.e. leaders/representatives of the Muslim umma), the Ottoman sultanssignificantly reformed the domain of classical fiqh by introducing a new way to deal with alllegal matters deemed ‘unclarified’ through ‘direct’ revelations of the Qur’an and the Sunna.184