The Makkah Mosque Incident – A moment for scholars to reflect on justice, repentance and Ta’zir

HajjBy Haroon-Ishola BalogunThe facts are now clearer than the fiction that went viral. The two Bangladeshi migrant workers, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Siti Akhtar, were not newlyweds on honeymoon. They were not executed for a kiss on the forehead. According to the Saudi Ministry of Interior and the official dispatch to the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry, they were convicted of committing an explicit sexual act inside a mosque in the Makkah region – an act of desecration of a holy place, tried as adultery and immoral conduct, and sentenced under Ta’zir after judicial review.