GOING SWIMMING FULLY CLOTHED A Brief Introduction to Islamic Law | One Hundred Camels Talion law is known as the “law of retaliation." It’s most common expression is "an eye for an eye." A revelation from Allah pertaining to retaliation. 2:178 O believers, retaliation for the slain is prescribed for you; a free [man] for a free [man], a slave for a slave and a female for a female. But if he is pardoned by his brother (the aggrieved), usage should be followed (capital punishment would be replaced by blood-money) and he should pay him (the aggrieved) liberally and kindly. This is remission and mercy from your Lord. He who transgresses after that will have a painful punishment. In the same revelation Allah established blood-payments as compensation for murder, if a brother (usually the older brother, or designated member of the family of the prematurely deceased) is willing to accept such a payment instead of insisting that the murderer be put to death. The amount of the blood-payment was left up to His Messenger, which he set during his last sermon. The most important legal document in Islam, after the Koran, is the Prophet Muhammad’s Last Khutba, his Farewell Sermon, his last sermon which he gave a few months before he died. In his final instructions for the believers, delivered on mount Arafat on the outskirts of Mecca, the Prophet reminded the believers about Allah's declaration about talion law and the payment of blood-money. In his last sermon God's Messenger also set the maximum value of a human life taken by another at 100 camels, and how you ascertain if the taking of that life was deliberate. And intentional murder shall be punished according to talion law*; where the murderess intention is not clear and the victim is killed using a club or a stone it will cost the perpetrator one hundred camels as blood money. Whoever demands more is a man from the time of ignorance. From a translation by Islamic scholar and author Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah’s [1908-2002] To simplify things for visitors to the Kingdom, the Saudis have prepared a "death compensation schedule." In 2002, the penalty for accidentally killing a male believer was 100,000 riyal (about $27,000 Canadian); a male Christian or Jew 50,000 riyals; practitioners of other religions a mere 6,666.66 riyal; a non-believing woman, a real bargain at about 3,333 riyal, half of the cost of killing the lowest man on the Saudi’s death compensation totem pole. Author Yaroslav Trofimov, in Faith At War, A Journey On The Frontlines of Islam (Henry Holt, 2005) makes no mention of a monetary penalty for accidentally killing a believing woman. What would be the point! The chance of a visitor to the Kingdom coming into contact with a Saudi woman or girl is almost nil as all women in the Saudi Kingdom are usually confined to their homes or in segregated workplaces or schools. The recommended payment in the “death compensation scheduled” is just that, a recommendation; a recommendation if you want to avoid haggling over the monetary worth of a recently departed loved one. If the deceased is a believer, and his death the result of negligence, the male head of the decease's household can refuse the money and instead request a life for a life. The Saudi authorities will usually oblige the family of the victim by separating the hapless klutz's head from his shoulders with a quick blow from a sharp sword. In some countries governed by the Sharia, it's the hangman's noose. On December 1, 2010, at dawn, 40-year-old Shahla Jahed was hanged, with the son of the woman she is alleged to have killed doing the honours on behalf of the family, by pulling out the chair on which the woman was standing with a rope around her neck pleading for her life. Taking a life for a life notwithstanding, in modern enlightened Saudi Arabia, and most other jurisdictions where the Koran and the Prophet rule, capital punishment is usually reserved for: 1) those who would abandon the perfect religion (Islam) for one less perfect or no religion at all; 2) those who are alleged to have deliberately or even inadvertently insulted the Prophet, or expressed doubts about the Koran i.e. heretics; 3) those who can’t afford to pay blood money; 4) those who would threatened the established order; 5) females in adulterous relationships, and females who indulge in pre-marital sex e.g. Iran: 15-year-old, Atefeh Rajabi hanged for having sex outside marriage; Somalia: 13-year-old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow stoned to death for the same offence.
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