This article seeks to understand and describe the process of enacting the punishment of rajm (stoning) in the Islamic Penal Code of 2013 as an instance of the role played by policy actors in criminal policymaking. One of the methods for policy analysis and understanding how policy formation and changes occur is stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis techniques are often employed to identify stakeholders with the capacity for agency and to manage their intervention in the policymaking process, thus pertaining to the pre-policy formulation stage. However, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is among the techniques suitable for analyzing what has transpired during the policymaking process. This article applies the aforementioned technique to analyze the contentious process of enacting the rajm punishment in the Islamic Penal Code of 2013. Relying on documentary and interview data, it is argued that this process was an arena for the confrontation of two main coalitions with conflicting "core belief systems": the "Traditional-Jurisprudential Coalition" with the core belief in the necessity of legally stipulating Islamic rulings as a symbol of religious sovereignty, and the "Expediency-Oriented/Functionalist Coalition" with the core belief in prioritizing the expediency of the system (state interests) and reducing international costs. The outcome of this confrontation was not the complete victory of one coalition, but rather a compromise and relative agreement between the two coalitions in the form of Article 225 of the Islamic Penal Code. This agreement entailed stipulating rajm in the text of the law while simultaneously incorporating suspension mechanisms that render its practical implementation nearly impossible (a symbolic victory for the first coalition in the legislative arena and a practical victory for the second coalition in the implementation arena).