If a woman’s tongue is burned, she is guilty of adultery: the bizarre medieval Egyptian trial where red-hot metal dispenses “justice”

In some regions of Egypt, justice is not carried out in courts or with scientific evidence: it is administered with red-hot metal in a practice called Bisha’a.

It is said to have originated among some Bedouin tribes of Saudi Arabia as a method for detecting lies, in which a man, usually the husband or a male relative, takes a piece of iron and heats it until it is red-hot. Then, he presses it against the tongue of the woman accused of adultery and, if her tongue burns, she is guilty, but if she manages to endure it and it does not burn, she is innocent.

It does not matter if she truly did nothing; there is no place for appeal here: only tradition, fear, and a piece of hot metal deciding.

The punishment for the “guilty” woman is stoning.

Video:

Some muslims in Egypt still perform “adultery tests”, a man presses a red-hot piece of metal on a woman’s tongue. If it burns, she’s guilty.

The punishment? Stoning to death.

What could possibly go wrong? pic.twitter.com/UCBQ0459qN

— U.M.A.R 🇺🇬 (@UKarungi) May 4, 2026