This is the only hadees which is quoted for this purpose. People did not commit any other crime and came and confessed ? In all of the big population of Arab there was only one Muslima/Ghamdia who needed to be purified that too with such a severe punishment. People did not commit any other crimes in those days for which there are punishments specified in Quran e.g theft , murder . usurpation of rights and wealth of others and then came and confessed to be purified ? I find it very disturbing. Quran does not specify Rajam ( death by stoning) as the punishment for zina and based on this hadees we are adamant to kill those who commit zina and ignore Quran in this case. Hadees and sunnat cannot supersede or override Quran but we are exactly doing that, it is very very disturbing for me. May Allah give me some guidance and wisdom to understand the wisdom of this hadees and other ahadees which override Quran. Ameen.
Peace Mirch
I have heard somewhere that the woman was a Jewess and there are other hadith in the faithfreedom link that show the stoning to death penalty is actually taken from the Old Testament. It appears Jews were sentenced in Muslims lands in accordance with their own penal codes and Muslims were sentenced in accordance with their own codes.
Whether the Qur'an contradicts rajam or not is an issue for you to take up but when the Qur'an is silent on rajam it does not mean the issue is against the Qur'an. In the Qur'an it talks clearly about eye for an eye type of dealing with regards to punishment, but it does say that forgiveness is better.
This sort of answers brother Teggy's question ... There are certain cases where death (i.e. manslaughter) caused by accident can lead to just a payment from the perpetrator side to the family of the victim. However, neglegence and violent reaction and then premeditated are all treated with different levels of severity. I'll try to find the dissertation and quote from it, inshaAllah.