Adultery is considered a sin in all religions.

The Bible decrees the death sentence for both the adulterer and the adulteress:

“If a man commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” (Lev. 20:10)

Islam also equally punishes both the adulterer and the adulteress:


However, the Qur’anic definition of adultery is very different from the Biblical definition. Adultery, according to the Qur’an, is the involvement of a married man or a married woman in an extramarital affair. The Bible only considers the extramarital affair of a married woman as adultery.


"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10)

“To keep you from your neighbour's wife, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Lust not in your heart after her beauty, let her not captivate you with her glance! For the price of a loose woman may be scarcely a loaf of bread, But if she is married, she is a trap for your precious life. Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his garments not burned? Or can a man walk on live coals, and his feet not be scorched? So with him who goes in to his neighbour's wife-- none who touches her shall go unpunished.” (Proverbs, 6:24-:29)




The Qur’an, on the other hand, never considers any woman to be the possession of any man. The Qur’an eloquently describes the relationship between the spouses by saying:


This is the Qur’anic conception of marriage: love, mercy, and tranquillity, not possession and double standards.

  • 1. Jeffrey H. Togay, “Adultery”, Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. II, col. 313. Also see Judith Laskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990) pp. 170-177.
  • 2. Swidler, op. cit. p. 141.