Abuja, Nigeria ? The Nigerian woman condemned to stoning by an Islamic court for having sex outside marriage thanked beauty queens Tuesday for boycotting Nigeria’s Miss World pageant on her behalf – but asked them to call off the boycott, saying nothing will happen to her “without God’s permission.”

Clad in an Islamic headscarf, 31-year-old Amina Lawal played with her baby as she spoke with journalists outside her lawyer’s home in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Participants began arriving Monday for the Dec. 7 pageant finale, but five stayed away.

“I really appreciate the support of the contestants who have offered to boycott for me. But I urge them to come,” Lawal said, adding: “I am not afraid because no man can do me harm without God’s permission.”

Nigerian officials have insisted they will not allow any stoning judgments to be carried out. Yet the federal government has refused to intervene directly in the Islamic court system that handed down the punishment. Since 1999, the Shariah system has been adopted by a dozen predominantly Muslim northern states.

Lawal briefly went into hiding in August after a Shariah appeals court upheld the original judgment. The woman, who has two other children from previous marriages, said she was not aware of government assurances that the stoning sentence would not be carried out.

Small and pretty with large eyes, Lawal now smiles shyly. But in August, overcome when the Shariah court rejected her appeal, she burst into tears in the courtroom :quot; believing she would be executed at once.

Yet more recently, she says, she has traveled openly between her rural northern village of Bakori and Abuja. She smiled slightly and shook her head when asked if she were afraid. “I just cannot worry too much about what will happen,” she said.

Amina Lawal, a single mother who has been condemned to death by stoning for having sex outside of marriage, holds her child Wasila as she talks to journalists Tuesday in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. Lawal thanked beauty queens for boycotting the Miss World pageant on her behalf but asked them to call off their protest.

At least five Miss World contestants – from Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama – did not show up Monday for the charter flight that ferried hopefuls from London to Nigeria. The five no-shows had said they would honor calls to boycott the event as a protest of stoning judgments; 80 other contestants ignored the call.

Among the arrivals Monday was U.S. contestant Rebekah Revels, who attracted a flurry of media attention after she lost the Miss North Carolina title in July over topless photos allegedly taken by her boyfriend. She unsuccessfully tried to reclaim the state crown in court.

Lawal called the Miss World pageant a “one-time event” to which “many resources” had been devoted, and said she hoped to watch it. She insisted her opinion had not been influenced by organizers or government officials.

While fundamentalist Muslim groups have criticized the pageant as sacrilegious, officials here have billed it as the highest-profile international event ever staged in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.