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[ by Charles Cameron — I got the announcement via Cole Bunzel, and Kévin Jackson kindly informed me that Dr Fadl is currently free ]

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Dr Fadl‘s announcement, in Arabic, is here — I had to use Google Translate, which wouldn’t pass a Turing test. However…

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A while back, I made a post here titled Will Dr Fadl retract his Retractions? in which I wrote:

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, popularly known as Dr Fadl, wrote two of the key works of jihadist ideology, The Essential Guide for Preparation and the thousand-page Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge, in the late 1980s — thereby providing his friend from student days, Ayman al-Zawahiri, with powerful scholarly backing for the doctrines of militant jihad and takfirism. Lawrence Wright refers to Fadl as an “Al-Qaeda mastermind” in a detailed 2008 New Yorker analysis.

Dr Fadl was imprisoned without trial in the Yemen shortly after 9/11, but it was after he had been transferred to an Egyptian prison in 2004 that he wrote Rationalizing Jihad, the first volume of his “retractions” — a work so powerful in its attack on his own earlier jihadist doctrine that al-Zawahiri felt obliged to respond with a two-hundred page letter of rebuttal. A second volume from Dr. Fadl followed more recently.

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If Dr Fadl regains his liberty, the question arises whether he will claim his critiques of jihadist dictrine were obtained by force, and effectively retract his retractions – or whether he will stand by them, as I somehow expect he might — still declaring, this time as a free man, that “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property,” and “There is nothing in the Sharia about killing Jews and the Nazarenes, referred to by some as the Crusaders. They are the neighbors of the Muslims … and being kind to one’s neighbors is a religious duty.”

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As late as October 2012, I was noting an Atlantic piece by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Aaron Zelin on How the Arab Spring’s Prisoner Releases Have Helped the Jihadi Cause, and asking whether Dr Fadl had been released in my post Quick update / pointer: GR & AZ on prisoner release — but now we know.

In response to an inquiry I tweeted after seeing Bunzel‘s tweet above — asking whether Dr Fadl was still imprisoned, albeit more comfortably than most — Kévin Jackson replied:

I’m no Arabist, but I’d guess we can take it that Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif aka Dr Fadl is talking freely in this book, which he says will cover both his experience of the history of AQ “from the womb (the Afghan jihad against communism) … to the end” in detail, with dates and names, and “all this with the background of the study of Islamic jurisprudence that distinguish between right and wrong, and this is a jurisprudential historical book.”

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Tricky that, the need to rely on Google Translate. Once again I regret my lack of umpteen languages.

[ by Charles Cameron — in case you missed TH’s tweets on Storm today ]
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Here’s a quick overview of Morton Storm, the complex figure who is reported to have brought Anwar al-Awlaqi a bride from Europe — and thus betrayed Awlaqi’s whereabouts to the Agency:

After converting to Islam, a former member of a Danish motorcycle gang travels to Yemen to study the Quran and soon comes in contact with radical preachers waging holy war against the West.

On the verge of becoming a jihadist, he abruptly abandons his faith and embarks on a dangerous undercover mission to help Western intelligence agencies capture or kill terrorists.

Morten Storm, 37, claims he worked for six years as an informant for the CIA, Britain’s MI5 and MI6 and Denmark’s security service, PET. All declined to comment for this article.

“Could they just say `he never worked for us’? Sometimes silence is also information,” Storm told AP in Copenhagen. “I know this is true, I know what I have done.”

Storm’s unlikely story, told in a new book and an interview with The Associated Press, has the drama and intrigue of a “Homeland” episode. But the burly, red-bearded Dane insists his tale isn’t fiction.

Storm said he decided to reveal his secret-agent life to the media – he first spoke to a Danish newspaper in October – because he felt betrayed by his agent runners.

In particular, he was upset that he wasn’t given credit for the airstrike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior al-Qaida figure, in Yemen in 2011.

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Thomas Hegghammer, author of the two books depicted above, and a highly respected academic specialist in terrorism and poliical violence, tweeted:

Enjoying new book on Danish ex-jihadi Morten Storm. Some highlights:

1) Regents pk mosque da’i sends Storm to Muqbil in Yemen in 97

2) Storm travels from Sanaa to Dammaj with “Rashid”, aging Afro-American Korea vet. They join 3000 Salafists in “gigantic boy scout camp”

3) in 98, after 8 months wMuqbil, Storm goes to Sana’a to find wife. Connects with jihad vets from Bosnia, Afgh. Weds, divorces Djbouti girl

4) Back to UK, Denmark; marries in Morocco; to Yemen again in 2001; almost goes to pre 9/11 Afgh; preaches jihad in Ta’iz (2001-2) instead.

5) Returns to DK in 2002 with wife and son Osama. Joins radicals in Vollsmose. “Jihad training” (obstacle course and paintball) in Odense

6) Moves to Luton in 2003; meets Omar Bakri, Taymour Abdelwahhab; demonstrates and jihad trains (in Barton Hills) with al-Muhajiroun

7) Thought 7/7 bombings were “cool”; found Bakri and Choudhry too soft; went to Yemen again in Jan 2006 but found no jihadis to join

8) Prepared to fight in Somalia in late 2006, but trip called off. Annoyed, he starts to doubt; turns completely after 2 weeks of googling

9) becomes PET informant in Jan 2007; sent to Tripoli, Lebanon in April to report on Raed Hlayhel, Omar Bakri, Fath al-Islam.

10) Meets w/MI6 and CIA (Jennifer Matthews) in spring of 2007; sent to UK for spy training; then travels between DK, UK, Kenya and Yemen.

11) Storm had taken classes with Awlaqi in 2006; Awlaqi helped Storm find a wife. Storm back in Sana in Aug 2008, they reconnect.

12) Aug: 2008: Awlaqi visits Storm’s flat; Awlaqi impressed by Dane’s Shabaab contacts. Awlaqi and Warsame speak on Storm’s mobile

13) next meeting in Sep 2009 in al-Hawta (Shabwa); Awlaqi mentions plots in West; wants fridge to store explosives, and help finding wife

14) Late 2009: Storm helps US-led operation against Saleh Nabhan in Somalia. Storm stays in touch w Awlaqi by email in 2009-2010

15) late Nov 2009: random female Awlaqi fan from Croatia contacts Storm via FB fanpage. Storm vets her and puts her in touch wAA.

16) Storm meets “Aminah” in Vienna in March 2010; shows her video from AA and records one of her for AA; gives her CIA-bugged suitcase.

17) On 2 June 2010 Aminah flies to Yemen. On arrival, cautious AA aides discard her suitcase. Storm still gets $250k cash from CIA.

18) New plan in spring 2011: go to Yemen, send AA a tracked USB. In Sanaa, Storm connects wAA, shops ladies items for Aminah on his request.

19) early Sep 2011: AA courier picks up tracked USB from Storm. AA killed on 30 Sep. Storm, back in DK, expects recognition as key agent

20) Storm, outraged at lack of recognition and reward, plots revenge. He secretly records next CIA meeting, then contacts press. THE END

Then:

PS: E-book version of the Morten Storm biography (Danish only) available here: http://tiny.cc/2wfxqw Sorry for overposting – I’ll shut up now

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I’d asked Hegghammer’s impression of the book’s (and Storm’s) credibility, while Aaron Zelin had commented on TH’s #7 above:

Right before the jailbreak in Feb ’06.

To which Hegghammer responded:

Exactly. It’s details like this (plus pics, receipts, recording etc) that makes it very credible

Will McCants has the last word…

also, his last name gives him superhero status

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The brief account of Morton Storm at the top of this post is from Huffington Post. Name links are to twitter feeds, all are recommended. Hegghammer’s books are available on Amazon.

[ by Charles Cameron — on blowback, in praise of a Gregory Johnsen post, and literacy ]
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ED Hirsch and Joseph F Kett‘s New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy doesn’t appear to have an entry for the phrase “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” which is straight out of the prophet Hosea and is now something of a proverb in the form “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind”. Hunh.

It’s an elegant phrase. The translators of the King James Bible were masterful in their singular ear for English, and no doubt Hosea‘s original Hebrew (Hosea 8.7) is no less pithy. Seed preceding harvest is about as basic a notion of cause resulting in effect as one can find in the lived world of agriculture, with the actual mechanism through which it comes to pass hidden in the “black box” between them where, as another biblical passage (John 12.24) puts it:

unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

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Sow the wind…

It doesn’t sound like much, does it? Put an airy nothing in the ground…

reap the whirlwind.

If you were within media reach of the devastation that Sandy caused to New York and New Jersey — or Haiti (yet again) for that matter — you know what reaping the whirlwind is about. And the proverb, with the prophet behind it, tells us we get it by sowing the wind.

Blowback.

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Gregory Johnsen, in a recent Waq-al-Waq post, Sowing the Wind: Three years of strikes in Yemen, pulls together three recent news pieces on Yemen to give us a view from 30,000 feet — in which blowback is clearly visible as the “whirlwind” his title implies we are already beginning to reap.

This sort of “here’s how the weather system looks from above” picture comes from the juxtaposition of key quotes, and since that’s one of my specialties, I’ll present two quotes that Johnsen selected in my own format devised with just that sort of exercise in mind:

That first quote is from Letta Tayler in Foreign Policy, and the second from Sudarsan Raghavan in the Washington Post.

As Johnsen puts it:

This is clear: the US bombs, kills civilians and AQAP sends compensation – ie, helps out the families that have been killed – and takes advantage of the carnage the US has sown to reap more recruits.

This is at once all too sad, and at the same time all too predictable.

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There’s plenty more in Johnsen’s post, obviously, and being a trawler for religious details, I myself was particularly amused, or maybe alarmed, by this sentence:

That opening strike in the US’ war against AQAP in Yemen was a disaster, a strike so bad that the Pentagon lawyer who authorized it famously said later: “if I were Catholic, I’d have to go to confession.”

Indeed, as I hope to show shortly in a review of his book, The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia, Johnsen has a great deal to tell us, and he tells it with the added grace of a real appreciation for the language he uses.

Which brings me to the reason why I singled this particular post for commendation, given that I read a number of insightful people on a number of interesting topics each day.

Gregory Johnsen is literate, lettered.

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I can’t estimate for myself just how many people would know and recognize the Hosea quote, nor how many more would at least know the proverb “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” well enough to recognize its first half and provide the second half from memory… That’s why I looked it up in Hirsch’s New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. And when I didn’t find it there, I have to say I wasn’t surprised.

Way back in 19232, was it, TS Eliot was dropping snippets of already obscure (obsolete?) texts in English, Italian, Latin, and French — from Thomas Kyd‘s Spanish Tragedy, Dante‘s Purgatorio, the Pervigilium Veneris, and Gérard de Nerval‘s El Desdichado — into his poem The Waste Land, with the comment “these fragments I have shored against my ruins.”

As Eliot would note later in Burnt Norton, “Words strain, / Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, / Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, / Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place…”… And how much more so the myths, fables and proverbs made of them — myths, fables and proverbs which pass down the embodied wisdom of generations, as this proverb from Hosea passes down embodied wisdom about blowback — or negative positive feedback loops, as a latter-day Hosea might call them.

Johnsen is, precisely in this sense, literate, and in addition to the benefit his analysis brings, it’s a delight to read him for that very reason.

But there’s an even bigger issue here — the one Eliot was on about — the question of what happens when we lose the cultural underpinnings which, I’ll repeat, pass down the embodied wisdom of generations?

Johnsen speaks to the present, to Yemen, to the Yemeni people and to American politics. But in quoting that fragment of a proverb in his title, and expecting us to recognize it, he also speaks to memory, to culture, and to wisdom — wisdom, the capacity to act wisely — to which memory and culture are portals.

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William Blake painted The Lord Answering Job Out of the Whirlwind, which I’ve placed at the top of this post, and it is said in Job 38.1, “the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind”.

In a forthcoming post — how often have I posted those words, and how seldom do I manage to fullfil them? — I hope to address the other possibility, the one in which as I Kings 19 has it (verses 11-12):

And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

But the Lord was not in the wind — it might be nice if the evangelists of righteous doom would remember that verse, before they inform us that a hurricane like Sandy is simply God reproving Cuba, Haiti and the eastern seaboard of the United States!

[ by Charles Cameron — comparative contemporary crucifixions, an ugly, ugly business whenever, wherever and by whomsoever… ]
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I don’t suppose MEMRI — which is after all, as its name suggests. focused on the Middle East — will be taking note of the recent crucifixion in Michoacan, Mexico, but any ZP readers who saw my recent post about the crucifixion MEMRI documented in Yemen (upper panel) might find the following from a “technical note” at SWJ about the Michoacan crucifixion of a rapist (lower panel) illuminating:

It would have been more expedient to simply hang Martinez Cruz by a rope over the traffic sign but instead the time and effort was taken to symbolically crucify him. This act, along with the accompanying narco message, the way in which the alleged rapist was forcibly taken from police custody, the severing of the male genitalia, and the fact that the incident took place in Michoacán all provide a “contextual basis” which suggests that elements of either La Familia or Los Caballeros Templarios (the Knights Templars) splinter group/successor are involved with this abduction and subsequent torture-killing. Both groups in the past have carried out public humiliations and torture-killings against those they deem as undesirables and threats to civil society. Viewing themselves as protectors of the citizenry of Michoacán, both groups, which expose cult-like Christian beliefs, would thus likely view such a symbolic crucifixion as indicative of god’s judgment on a sinner. If this interpretation is accurate, then this barbaric incident would represent another small escalation in radicalized Christian cult-like behaviors emerging in Michoacán.

Robert Bunker, with whom followers of the blog will be familiar, wrote this piece for SWJ and has added this in a striking addendum:

A recent precedent for the threat of Christians crucifying others in Mexico exists. In September 2011, seventy evangelical protestants were forced to flee from the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan, about 45 miles West of Mexico City, after being threatened with lynching and crucifixion if they remained in the village. The instigator of the threat was Father Ascensión González Solís, the local parish priest, who was subsequently forced to retire.

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Dangling thoughts:

Religious sanction can at times elicit violence from the merely pious…
The religiosity of the extremely violent is itself liable to be extremely violent…

[ by Charles Cameron — news, debate, credibility, Muslim brotherhood, Egypt, Ansar al-Shariah, Yemen, capital punishment, scriptures, USA, progress? ]
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There’s plenty of food for thought here — quite a Smörgåsbord in fact — with rumor outstripping fact, images and facts too grisly for the squeamish, biases and bias-confirmation, subtlety in the details, scriptural sanctions and shifts in emphasis, capital punishment… and human progress, to paraphrase William Gibson, more or less evenly distributed.

Round One:

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On the 17th of August, Michael Carl wrote a piece, Arab Spring run amok: ‘Brotherhood’ starts Crucifixions in WorldNetDaily:

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of newly installed President Mohammed Morsi.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

The run amok is stated as fact, the crucifixions are described in terms of reports.

Also worth noting:

Carl quoted in his support Raymond Ibrahim — a Fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism — in support. It is worth noting that Ibrahim, who authored The Al Qaeda Reader — a book I admire for its pointed insistance of the religious current in AQ documents — is himself an American of Egyptian Coptic Christian parentage, whose views of the Brotherhood can be gleaned from a recent post of his titled Egypt: Islamists vs. Copts — An Animosity That Seeks Any Excuse to Attack

Round Two:

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On the 22nd, Jonathan Kay responded to Carl’s piece in the [Candadian] National Post, Egypt’s “crucifixion” hoax becomes an instant Internet myth:

Have you heard the one about how Christians are being nailed up on crucifixes and left to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place?

It’s a story worth dissecting — not because it’s true (it isn’t), but because it is a textbook example of how the Internet, once thought to be the perfect medium of truth-seeking, has been co-opted by culture warriors as a weapon to fire up the naïve masses with lies and urban legends.

Kay then offered his somewhat nuanced critique:

It is, of course, theoretically possible that Muslim radicals truly have “crucified” someone, somewhere, sometime, in Egypt. Islamist mobs have staged countless murderous attacks on Copt “infidels” in recent years — and a crucifixion would hardly be a more barbarous tactic than truck bombs and beheadings.

But the story doesn’t just allege that a crucifixion has taken place somewhere in Egypt: It alleges that multiple crucifixions have taken place in front of the presidential palace. That would be the equivalent of, say, mass lynchings taking place in front of the White House, or a giant gang rape taking place in front of Ottawa’s Centennial Flame fountain.

Kay then goes into some detail about his attempts to find a single photograph — or an eyewitness account — of a crucifixion outside Egypt’s Presidential Palace, and his inability to find either one, coupled with his research into the murky origins of the story…

His overall sense of things?

Why do so many people believe this made up story? For the same reason that people believe all urban legends — because they play to some deeply held narrative that resides in our deepest fears. In this case, the narrative is that the Arab Spring is part of an orchestrated Islamist plot to destroy Western civilization (beginning with Israel).

Round Three:

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Carl quickly responded with Video Report confirms Egyptian Crucificions.

The problem here: Kay had written “That’s because there is no Sky report on the subject” — he had, he write that, and Carl quoted him, pointing out that Sky had in fact carried a report, as if that dismissed Kay’s point. What Carl didn’t quote was the following paragraphs, in which Kay said:

Yesterday I contacted the management of Sky News Arabic, and asked them about the crucifixions. According to Fares Ghneim, a Sky communications official, the crucifixion claim “began on social media. It started getting pick-up from there and eventually reached us.”

“Our reporters came across reports of the alleged crucifixions and a story very briefly appeared on the Sky News Arabia website,” he added. “The story — which was taken down within minutes — was based on third-party reports and I am not aware that any of our reporters said or confirmed anything along the lines of what is quoted…

So: Kay somewhat foolishly overstated his case with his summary “there is no Sky report” but made it immediately clear that there was in fact a report, “taken down within minutes”. Carl then quotes the inaccurate summary and shows it to be inaccurate, while ignoring the more detailed (and accurate) version.

Round Four:

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Jonathan Kay came back on the 24th with More on the debunked Egyptian ‘crucifixion’ hoax (and its 2009 precedent). He made the point I’ve just made above, and then mentioned a Carnegie Endowment report describing “an internet rumor circulated in late 2008 to the effect that Hamas was ‘celebrating’ Christmas by crucifying Gaza’s non-Muslims”:

And amazingly, it wasn’t just the conspiracy theorists at WND who got sucked into this one. According to Brown, it was featured in blogs connected to such respectable publications as The New Republic, National Review and Commentary. Even the Simon Wiesenthal Center was pushing the story.

Voices that agree with you are easier to hear (and believe) than voices that don’t.

Round Five:

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Carl came back again with Shocking video evidence of Islamic Crucifixion on the 29th:

WND recently confirmed a Sky News Arabia report of the crucifixion of dissidents in Egypt.

According to a report by Lebanon Today translated into English, the Yemeni jihadist group Ansar al-Shariah took control of the Azzan area of Yemen and imposed Islamic law, or Shariah.

In the process, the group crucified three men, accusing them of being agents for the U.S. The executions reportedly took place several months ago.

See that?

We’ve been discussing crucifixions allegedly taking place right outside the Presidential Palace in Egypt, and although the headline here doesn’t specify Egypt, the Egypt story is again mentioned — at which point we switch from Egypt to Yemen, and from the Muslim Brotherhood to the AQAO-related Ansar al Shariah!

Funny thing, that.

And then some:

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The Carnegie report:

Here’s another quick quote from the Carnegie Endowment’s piece to which Kay referred, Pointers for the Obama Administration in the Middle East: Avoiding Myths and Vain Hopes from January 2009:

Myth 4: Hamas decided to celebrate Christmas by crucifying people.

Didn’t hear this one?

It is an odd story and one that is not central to diplomatic efforts. But it can illustrate the treacheries of finding one’s way in the conflict.

Different versions of this story has spread around the world—propounded most recently by a member of the Australian Senate.

If you have not read about it, that is because of what you choose to read. If you rely on the New York Times, the story would be news to you. If you choose the Washington Post, you may remember it popping up in Charles Krauthammer’s column. It turned up at least twice in the Washington Times. In the UK, it was asserted by a columnist for the Times but by none in the Guardian. Aficionados of English-language Israeli press would have read it a couple times in the Jerusalem Post but never in Ha‘aretz. It was featured in blogs connected to the New Republic, the National Review, and Commentary, but not the Nation or Mother Jones. It was pushed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center but not pursued by other mainstream Jewish organizations.

Oh, and by the way — it’s not true.

So the credibility of various media is at issue here, eh?
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WND:

As Kay observed in his first piece, WorldNetDaily does have a history of making dubious conspiracist claims, such as:

most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products

Medical authorities with a wide range of approaches have refuted this claim, from Dr Andrew Weil (“the premier resource for timely, trustworthy information on natural health and wellness“):

When you consider that millions of men in China, Japan and other Asian countries have had soy foods in their daily diets from earliest childhood, you can appreciate that the plant estrogens they contain have no discernible effect on male sexual development, and no feminizing effects at all.

to the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes for Health, which hosts the Fertility and Sterility (2010 May 1; 93(7): 2095-104) article Soybean isoflavone exposure does not have feminizing effects on men: a critical examination of the clinical evidence.
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Meanwhile in Yemen…

I usually like to have an intriguing graphic at the head of my posts, but the appropriate graphic for this one is striking enough that I thought it better to present it here, well into the body of the post. It comes from MEMRI TV:

It depicts that crucifixion in Yemen. And I’d say it represents a man who has been hung on a cross to die in the excruciating heat, rather than someone crucified in the Roman manner. Either way, the death would be a horrible one — and such things happen.

It appears there was indeed a crucifixion — indeed, there may have been three — in Yemen.
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Nota Bene:

But note well: this is not the Muslim Brotherhood, this is not Egypt, this is not anything happening directly in front of Morsi’s Presidential Palace. This is Yemen, and this is allegedly the work of Ansar al-Shariah.

Gregory Johnsen described the relationship between Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Ansar al-Shariah a few months ago in this Frontline piece:

We know that Nasir al-Wuhayshi heads both AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia. We know that the different emirs for Ansar al-Sharia accept the bay‘a or oath of allegiance on behalf of Wuhayshi. And we know that members claimed by Ansar al-Sharia are also claimed by AQAP. … What we don’t know is whether everyone who self-identifies as Ansar al-Sharia would also identify as a member of AQAP.

Okay, the exact, appropriate use of the term Al-Qaeda and the relations of AQAP and Ansar are topic of discussion among scholars. But whether you think, Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, they’re all the same, or Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, so very different, likely depends on how much you know about the respective organizations and their history.

Here’s a fairly nuanced assessment from CFR:

Since 9/11, prominent members of the Brotherhood have renounced violence publicly and tried to distance themselves from al-Qaeda’s violent practices. The Brotherhood’s foray into electoral politics has also widened the schism between them and groups like al-Qaeda. Zawahiri had been openly critical of the Brotherhood’s participation in the 2005 parliamentary elections.

But like other mass social movements, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is hardly a monolith; it comprises hardliners, reformers, and centrists, notes terrorism expert Lydia Khalil. And some hardline leaders have voiced support for al-Qaeda or use of violent jihad…

By way of religious context:

The Qur’an endorses crucifixion as a penalty at 5.33-4:T

Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter, unless they repent before you overpower them: in that case bear in mind that God is forgiving and merciful.

Similarly, the Torah in Deuteronomy 21.18-21 endorses death by stoning for disobedient sons:

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Jesus in the Gospel of John 8.7 comments on the punishment by stoning of an adulteress with a clever rabbinic shift of emphasis — not denying earlier scripture (Deuteronomy 17.7) which called for the first stone to be cast by a witness, but rendering the punishment itself effectively impossible to carry out:

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Finally:

From stoning, crucifixion and beheading, we the human race have by and large progressed in our use of capital punishment to such more recent devices as the guillotine, gas chamber, electric chair, and lethal injection.

Someone named Starling Carlton was executed in South Carolina in 1859 for aiding a runaway slave.

According to the Innocence Project:

Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row.

And so the wheel turns.