Women, Shari’ah, and Zina in Northern Nigeria Oluwakemi Adesina Osun State University Osogbo Abstract In 2000 and 2002, two women – Safiya Hussein and Amina Lawal – were tried and convicted for Zina in Northern Nigeria. The verdicts handed down was death by stoning; the punishment for adultery (zina) by Islamic law. Zina is considered one of the greatest sins in Islam. Thus, Islamic law prescribes stoning as the penalty for a married person, while the punishment for an unmarried male adulterer is one hundred lashes or being exiled for twelve months. The basis for the chastisement is the Qur‘an, while the source for the punishment is found in the Hadith. The immediate reaction of the people of Northern Nigeria was that of happiness. Several reasons have been adduced for this feeling. According to Ogbu Kalu, the sentences were considered ―a mark of identity, a measure of mobilization of the Islamic ummah, hope for greater social security, employment for shari‘ah enforcers, belief that it would engender development and true religious commitment‖. (Kalu, O.:2004) Meanwhile, Section 1 of the Nigerian Constitution avers that ―the Constitution is supreme and its provision shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria,‖ (including all its 36 States in Nigeria as well as the Federal Capital Territory ). Section 1(3) further states ―If any other law is inconsistent with the provision of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistence, be void.‖ Thus, this paper investigates the reactions of the civil society, particularly Muslim women of southwestern Nigeria to the issue of ―stoning‖, bearing in mind that the men who impregnated these women were set free by the same law that sentenced these two women to death by stoning.