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208chapter fournot only imposed a very harsh penalty, leaving no room for eithermitigation or mercy, He also provided a system of ‘double-checks’that aims at counterbalancing the harshness of the imposed penaltiesand at preventing abuse by overzealous bigots. 245.Lower and upper limits remain untouched by curvatureThe fifth type contains the movement of curvature between the lowerand upper limits by which neither of the two are touched. Thismovement of curvature is, for example, present in sexual relationsbetween men and women. Beginning with a point above the lowerlimit, where men and women do not yet have any physical contact,the curvature moves upward in the direction of the upper limit andstops close to committing zin§. The lower limit (no relationship) andthe upper limit (zin§) remain untouched by this relationship. If, however,a couple is legally married, it is permitted to cross the upperlimit since their (licit) sexual intercourse will not count as zin§ (here:adultery). Thus type four will not apply here. In this case, to stepover the upper limit is justified, similar to the case of (pardonable)killing in self-defence or manslaughter through culpable negligence.Types 4 and 5 are therefore interrelated because if, for example, anonmarried couple is sexually active, their curvature illegitimatelytouches the upper limit, that is, zin§ (here: fornication), while thesexual intercourse of a married couple does not count as zin§ but asa legitimate touching of the upper limit as in type five.24According to \anafÊ law, both man and woman must be held accountable forthe offence of zin§ if they meet the following criteria: a) that they had illicit sexualintercourse (with penetration), outside a marital relationship, and b) that they eitherconfessed this act four times on four different occasions, or four witnesses testifiedagainst them by providing specific details about the intercourse. As for its punishment,if the offender is a muÈßan/a, i.e., if he or she is a free adult who has previouslyenjoyed legitimate sexual relations in matrimony, he/she would be punished bydeath (stoning). If he/she is not a muÈßan/a the punishment is one hundred lashesapplied to the whole body except for the face and the private parts (see Ibn Mawdådal-MåßilÊ, al-Ikhtiy§r li-ta#lÊl al-mukht§r, vol. 2, 311–16). It is obvious that MS does notaccept the death penalty since it cannot be supported by any textual evidence fromthe Qur"an (it is based on a ÈadÊth that changed flogging into stoning, even thoughthe ÈadÊth only mentions the stoning of the married female adulterer. See Peters,Crime and Punishment, 60).