A MUSLIM AND THE DEATH PENALTY

A Muslim who �bears testimony to the fact that there is no God but Allah, and I [Muhammad] am the Messenger of Allah,� can be punished with the death penalty only if he is a married adulterer, or if he has killed someone (i.e., someone who is a Muslim, according to many jurists), or if he is a deserter from Islam (4152-4155).  The translator tells us that there is almost a consensus of opinion among the jurists that apostasy from Islam must be punished with death.  Those who think such a punishment is barbarous should read the translator�s justification and rationale for it (note 2132).

author : ram swarup

QISAS

QisAs literally means �tracking the footsteps of an enemy�; but technically, in Muslim law, it is retaliatory punishment, an eye for an eye.  It is the lex talionis of the Mosaic law.

A Jew smashed the head of an ansAr girl and she died.  Muhammad commanded that his head be crushed between two stones (4138).  But in another case, which involved the sister of one of the Companions, bloodwite was allowed.  She had broken someone�s teeth.  When the case was brought to Muhammad, he told her that �QisAs [retaliation] was a command prescribed in the Book of Allah.� She made urgent pleas and was allowed to go free after paying a money compensation to the victim�s next of kin (4151).

author : ram swarup

DEATH PENALTY FOR APOSTASY REBELLION

One can accept Islam freely, but one cannot give it up with the same freedom.  The punishment for apostasy-for giving up Islam-is death, though not by burning.  �Once a group of men apostatized from Islam.  �Ali burnt them to death.  When Ibn �AbbAs heard about it, he said: If I had been in his place, I would have put them to sword for I have heard the apostle say, Kill an apostate but do not burn him for Fire is Allah�s agency for punishing the sinners� (TirmizI, vol. I, 1357).  Eight men of the tribe of �Ukl became Muslims and emigrated to Medina.  The climate of Medina did not suit them.  Muhammad allowed them �to go to the camels of sadaqa and drink their milk and urine� (urine was considered curative).  Away from the control of the Prophet, they killed the shepherds, took the camels and turned away from Islam.  The Prophet sent twenty ansArs after them with an expert tracker who could follow their footprints.  The apostates were brought back.  �He [the Holy Prophet] got their hands cut off, and their feet, and put out their eyes, and threw them on the stony ground until they died� (4130).  Another hadIs adds that while on the stony ground �they were asking for water, but they were not given water� (4132).

The translator gives us the verse from the QurAn according to which these men were punished: �The just recompense for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is that they should be murdered, or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides, or they should be exiled� (QurAn 5:36).

author : ram swarup

QASAMAH

The fourteenth book is the �Book of Oaths� (al-qasAmah).  QasAmah literally means �taking an oath,� but in the terminology of the sharI�ah, it is an oath of a particular type and taken under particular conditions.  For example, when a man is found slain, and the identity of his slayer is unknown, fifty persons from the nearest district take an oath that they neither killed the man nor knew who did it.  This establishes their innocence.

This was apparently the practice among the pre-Islamic Arabs, and Muhammad adopted it.  Once a Muslim was found slain.  His relatives accused the neighboring Jews.  Muhammad told them: �Let fifty persons among you take oath for leveling the charge of murder against a person among them, and he would be surrendered to you.� They declined to take the oath since they had not witnessed the murder.  Then Muhammad told them that �the Jews will exonerate themselves by fifty of them taking this oath.� They replied: �Allah�s Messenger, how can we accept the oath of unbelieving people?� Then Muhammad paid the bloodwite of one hundred camels for the slain man out of his own funds (4119-4125).

Another hadIs specifically tells us that Allah�s Messenger �retained the practice of QasAma as it was in the pre-Islamic days� (4127).

author : ram swarup

The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth books all relate to the subject of crime: the forms and categories of crime, the procedure of investigating them, and the punishments resultant from having committed them.

Muslim fiqh (law) divides punishment into three heads: hadd, qisAs, and ta�zIr.  Hadd (pl. HadUd) comprises punishments that are prescribed and defined in the QurAn and the HadIs.  These include stoning to death (rajm) for adultery (zinA); one hundred lashes for fornication (QurAn 24:2-5); eighty lashes for slandering an �honorable� woman (husun), i.e., accusing her of adultery; death for apostatizing from Islam (irtidAd); eighty lashes for drinking wine (shurb); cutting off the right hand for theft (sariqah, QurAn 5:38-39); cutting off of feet and hands for highway robbery; and death by sword or crucifixion for robbery accompanied by murder.

The law also permits qisAs, or retaliation.  It is permitted only in cases where someone has deliberately and unjustly wounded, mutilated, or killed another, and only if the injured and the guilty hold the same status.  As slaves and unbelievers are inferior in status to Muslims, they are not entitled to qisAs according to most Muslim faqIhs (jurists).

In cases of murder, the right of revenge belongs to the victim�s heir.  But the heir can forgo this right and accept the blood-price (diyah) in exchange.  For the death of a woman, only half of the blood-price is due.  The same applies to the death of a Jew or a Christian, but according to one school, only one-third is permissible in such cases.  If a slave is killed, his heirs are not entitled to qisAs and indemnity; but since a slave is a piece of property, his owner must be compensated with his full value.

The Muslim law on crime and punishment is quite complicated.  Though the QurAn gives the broad outline, the HadIsalone provides a living source and image.

author : ram swarup