See Sally chop off the infidel's hand. Chop, Sally. Chop.

Barbaric textbooks handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief's hands and feet under Sharia law, it has emerged.

The shocking books, paid for and printed by the Saudi government, also tell teenagers that Jews need to be exterminated and homosexuals should be 'put to death'.

Recent editions were obtained by the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C., which says they should raise fears in the West over the use of jihadist language.

An Iranian woman whose sentence of death by stoning for adultery provoked an international outcry could be executed by hanging instead, the country's judicial authorities have indicated.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old mother of two, was convicted of conducting an "illicit relationship outside marriage" in 2006 and has since been kept in Tabriz prison in the west of Iran.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of the judiciary in East Azerbaijan, said on Sunday that the prison does not have the "necessary facilities" to carry out the sentence of stoning. Therefore, he said, authorities are considering hanging as an alternative.