Blood-Owners Rule
In Islamic Penal Code, the concept of Qisas refers to ‘Eye for an Eye’ principle according to which the offended party has the right to seek for retaliation. In the case of murder, close keens of the murdered, called Blood Owners, has the right to ask for capital punishment. They also can set conditions to let the murderer live. Islamic Penal Code does not limit the conditions they may set, save that the terms must not be in conflict with other Islamic decrees.
In some cases, enforcing this law leads to disturbing situations. Following is an example of such an event. According to Baztab,
A woman who had murdered her husband got married to her brother-in-law to escape death penalty. Razieh, who committed murder when she was 15 years old, was taken into prison six years ago. She said she could no longer tolerate her husband.
Her account of the event is as follows.
“I was just a kid when I got married to him. He was a moody person and used to tease me. I had no relatives, and I was illiterate thus I could not work. Therefore I had to cope with my life. On the day of crime, I stabbed him with a knife while he was asleep.”
Parents of the late husband asked for capital punishment. During investigations, Razieh found out that she was pregnant. Since a pregnant woman must not be executed, she was taken into prison. She gave birth to a girl, and officials gave her another 18 months to breastfeed her daughter.
Meanwhile, community workers finally convinced her parents-in-law to let her live. They, however, set a series of conditions.
They asked Razieh to pay them 20 thousand dollars. In addition, they said that Razieh should marry their 18-years-old son. Moreover, Razieh shall not have any right to her daughter, her daughter shall not go to school, and her daughter shall marry once she is matured (9 years old). Finally, Razieh should live in the very room she committed murder.
To stay with her kid, Razieh agreed to their terms save the ban on schooling.
After a while, supervisory judges of the prison convinced her parents-in-law to let her live in another room and let her daughter go to school.
Ultimately, Razieh got married to her former brother-in-law and was set free.
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Please forgive my ignorance, is Islamic Penal Code a part of Koran or Hadith? is it only applicable in the shariat-law countries or in democracies too? anyway, the incident is grotesque.
@ roodrow
Islamic Penal Code is deriven from both Koran and Hadith (prophet’s tradition in general).
by ‘applicable’, if you mean legitimacy of state sponsored application of the code, the answer is no. some of current principles of islamic penal code are in conflict with democratic values and basic human rights.
however, if you mean pracical application of it, the answer is yes. in some cases, devout muslims try to follow islamic rules rather than what the state prescribes. for example, in the case of inheritance, some muslim families decide to follow the rules set by Islam.
what if some one doesnt repent? then fine to cut off the hands, right?
to Rudy:
a human being with conscience feels guilty over sinning so IN MY OPINION if a criminal is such a person who feels good stealing people’s property then he deserves to lose his hand or hands…..again this type of laws have got restrictions and their own rules
by the way amputation has been deleted from Iran’s Islamic penal codes since long time ago.
@ Samimaneh
Koran and tradition of holy prophet include a form and a content (read a simple explanation here). I certainly agree with you that the content of islamic law is nothing but about justice and development, and therefore it should be applicable everywhere. However, same is not true for forms.
for example, one may argue that inheritance law (according to which the man enjoys two times the woman) has been a fair rule in that period of time in which the man used to be (primary) breadwinner. however, in modern societies in which man and woman share the expenses, this law seems irrelevant.
By “principles which are in conflict with democratic values and basic human rights”, I mean such forms that would make sense in then traditional society of Arabia (and a better part of the world) but are not relevant anymore.
Dismembering somebody for stealing is a sign of a sick mind. Surprising that you support that. A person who doesnt repent needs imprisonment and correctional counselling. Cutting of hands as a punishhment, under any circumstance, is a defeat for any peaceful and just society.
Muhammad,
inheritance law is different than penal code, we don’t talk about inheritance, your post was about treating a convict within islamic sharia law and you called it inhumane to some extent,
you may know that civil law is different than criminal law, and the most fundamental difference is punishment ..so penal code is about punishment! and again I insist that even forms of punishments are based on human rights , Islamic law has got dynamic characteristics and capable of getting reformed to meet with needs of the society within Islamic jurisprudence ,it is not limited to time and location, it can be changed as long as the change doesn’t contradict Quran ,
let me tell you something, when someone commit a crime prison wont be always a good punishment, sending criminals to over crowded prisons is not really a good idea but when we try Islamic penal codes , the criminal can also enjoy the mercy of plaintiffs
for example in case of manslaughter , imprisoning the killer would be wrong and damage another family , so here we have to act upon divine sharia law,
I have read your post regarding the forms and content, your example was irrelevant to this subject, first of all crime is crime, whether it happened 5000 years ago or one second ago , content and forms the same , the aftermath of the crime is the same in forms and content , so the punishment is relevant to the crime in forms and content ,
I told you earlier the dismembering somebody does have conditions , in Islamic penal codes there are 17 conditions for cutting fingers of the thief, no judge can order to do so under the lack of even one of those conditions!
another important thing is that, cutting 4 fingers of the right hand ordered only after third time thievery again under circumstances , so it means that if a thief arrested for rubbery for the third time then they would cut 4 fingers of the right hand because prison didn’t seem to be a good punishment of such criminal !
in the USA in some of the states, after the third time they will categorized it as high level violation of law and they sentence the criminal to death . so which one sounds humane to you? killing or cutting 4 fingers only?
don’t be hasty on judging what you lack the knowledge
I made that example to show that some forms (with regards to law) may make sense in a certain period of time, just to get outdated in another. same is true for punishments.
with regards to punishments, one can truely argue that the level of brutality of a punishment should be proportionate to the level of brutality already available in the society. from this point, for example, stoning to death (for crimes undermining very basis of society, i.e. the family) might had been regarded a proper punishment in that period of time, for the people were more violent compared to us. (Read this to get my idea of violence decreasing over time.)
it was relevant in the sense that it helps us distinguish form of the law from content of the law. let me refer you again to the example of stoning to death.
and let me recall you that Ayatollah Shahroudi, former judiciary chief, on the basis of a similar argument, believed that stoning to death should be stopped. This example clearly shows the need to review forms of punishment according to modern socio-cultural factors.
Samimaneh, capital or corporal paunishment, in any form and under any condition in any country is unacceptable in our time. What USA does is wrong, so does many other countries including mine. There are many ways to deal with a repeated offender and dismemberment is never a solution in a civilized society, whatever conditions you may try to impose.
Is dismemberment better than killing? I really dont know. Did you had a chance to ask any one who had his hand chopped off ?
My point is simple. I dont want to argue with you about the fairness of a punishment as matched with the offence. That borders to personal opinion.
My point is, if we condemn capital and corporal punishment, we need to remove it completely from the law books. If we dont, then we belong to different worlds. No point in debating any more.
to Rudy,
I was not debating with you since debating with some one who doesn’t know anything about islamic law is useless,
and I believe in islamic law at any rate…
people like you who think executing even a chain murderer is inhumane have no logic and rationale!
My mistake, blind faiths cannot be debated. And we were talking about dismembering as punishment for thieves, which I felt kinda Draconian. Anyway, you cleared up my doubts about Islamic law. Thanks for the clarifications.
to Muhammad,
You may clarify this modern socio cultural factors to me please?
shall we compromise Islam to satisfy western moral codes?actually your words reminds of the group who call themselves “reform Islam” ..trying to change Quran too ….
according to you we are less violent than people of old arabia , so that we need to reform the forms of punishment…..i am afraid that you are wrong , there are evidences proving that we are becoming more violent, we actually invent new types of crimes which can even surprise Satan!
a simple survey on burglary and rape rate shows that they are upward trends. no need to mention other crimes ……
How ever in an Islamic society the form of punishment is also based on the situation and conditions which Islamic government provides ,, Islamic state must provide the best situation for its citizens to eradicate poverty (poverty in every sense from education and culture to economic issues)consequently decreasing crime rate …as long as Islamic state fails to prepare proper conditions in advance …they can’t also perform Islamic penal codes completely due to the lack of fair circumstances! hence, we can not call Islamic penal code outdated !
by the way is qisas outdated? how about blood money(diyeh)
stoning is different matter, scholars have different opinions about it and yet they haven’t got consensus over stoning , in fact they can’t really proof stoning law from quran , they don’t have any solid evidence on performing stoning in the time of RasulAllah either …that s why stoning must be omitted totally…..
Fascinating points here: Western penal systems do have “victims impact statements”, wherein the trauma of the victim or their families are given weight in sentencing. Many people feel that these are inadequate, particularly in cases of murder.
I am not in favour of “permanent” punishments such as executions or mutilations generally, simply because of the chance that someone wrongfully convicted may suffer them. That said, I must confess at the same time I see absolutely no reason to keep serial child rapists or murderers alive. I don’t think that anyone can give credibility to them “reforming”.
I find the excuse of poverty causing crime to be repugnant. For every criminal from a poor background there are thousands of other folk in similar straits who are honest, ethical, contributing members of society. Criminals come from all walks of life; there are fewer rich thieves because there are very few rich people…
This discussion does make a good point in that I do not think that Islam should in any way be compromised to satisfy Western moral codes. I also do not think that Western moral codes or laws should be compromised to satisfy Islamic standards. Every government, (except the communists and really, who cares about them anymore) presumes to have some sort of mandate from the Creator and casts baleful ideological glares at all the other ones. Every government also has certain fundamental principles about theft and violence that differ only in punishments, not in judgement of wrongdoing.
In the case in question, as a Westerner I cannot understand punishing the child of the woman for her crimes, ( not allowing her to attend school) and certainly do not condone it. I also have no idea why a murderer should be let off by being “punished” by marrying the victims brother. (Is he unusually ugly or smelly?). The whole thing is, to me, inexplicably bizarre, but then again, perhaps to the other readers putting her in a women’s prison for a decade or two would also be strange…