Saudi Arabia has a long history of beheading for offences not even punishable according to authentic Islamic sources. Having imprisoned and punished the blogger Raif Badawi for blasphemy, they now seek to behead him for ‘renouncing’ Islam.
Source/Credit: Author
By Atif Rashid | May 20, 2015
[This article has been revised / updated by the author on May 29, 2015]
Every day we hear of beheading in the news. Whether it’s ISIS murdering innocents or Saudi Arabia applying their interpretation of Islamic law. Islamophobes conveniently use it to spew their usual hatred and fear of Islam saying that Muslims are living in 7th century and are evil and cruel.
The media meanwhile loves the dramatic headlines beheading brings and soaks up all the drama surrounding it. As Frances Larson in her book about the history of beheading puts it, the “whole procedure is a piece of theatre designed to create power and cause fear, just as with state executions stretching back to the thirteenth century” - and the media loves it.
Indeed, execution by beheading has been going on for centuries, we aren’t witnessing anything new at all.
It is estimated that Nazi Germany beheaded thousands between 1933 and 1945 and who can forget how Henry VIII had his own wife decapitated. The French Revolution saw the introduction of the guillotine which was only outlawed as recently as 1977. Mexican cartels also often decapitate and display the heads of their rival gangs.
Having beheaded innocent aid workers and journalists, one has to wonder what the crime was for which they were beheaded except reporting the truth and serving humanity. Likewise, the 21 Coptic Christians mercilessly beheaded was a most heinous and intolerable act. Never justifiable under any circumstances.
ISIS, it seems, have warped back to the 11th century, having declared the 30 Ethiopian Christians they mercilessly shot and beheaded as ‘crusaders’ out to kill Muslims. Since when have these Ethiopian Christians been ‘hostile’ as the militants claim? For centuries Christians have been living under Muslim rule peacefully and comfortably without any hindrances. Ethiopia was the place where the very first Muslims took refuge under the righteous Christian King Al Najashi. Have Ethiopian Christians only suddenly become hostile to Islam after almost 2000 years? What a way to repay the people who gave shelter to the early Muslim refugees.
Proponents of beheading cite verses 8:13 and 47:5 of the Holy Qur’an which says 'smite their necks' or ‘smite the upper part of their necks’ both of which incidentally refer only to wartime and regular fighting - when you actually meet the enemy in the battlefield. Who are ISIS in battle with but themselves and peaceful, innocent minorities and journalists? Beheading isn’t even mentioned in these verses or anywhere in the Qur’an.
If anything, smiting the enemy during battle at the uppermost part of the necks is to deal an effective and swift blow so as to kill the enemy as quickly and painlessly as possible.
In fact both chapters deal largely with wartime and regular conditions of battle, chapter 8 is even named ‘Al Anfal’ or ‘The Spoils of War’. Chapter 47 is also named ‘Al Qital’ or 'The War' due to the subject matter of the chapter. The verses do not refer to civil rule or punishments in dealing with one's own citizens. ISIS on the other hand, not only punish their own ‘citizens’ unjustly but they also murder prisoners of their own self-concocted war.
Had these proponents of beheading read the entire verse of chapter 47 and followed it, they would have realised that captives must either be freed, ransomed or a mutual exchange of prisoners be negotiated.
In Islam, the killing of an innocent is deemed such an offence as if the murder of mankind had been committed. Apostasy is a matter between man and God. Again, the rights of minorities were protected by the Prophet Muhammad who taught respect for Jews, Christians and ‘people of the book’. Further, the Qur’an commands Muslims to protect the places of worship of other faiths against those who wish to raze them. And nowhere is beheading expressly mentioned as a punishment for a crime. Rather, the absolute right to exercise freedom of conscience is laid down.
Anti-Islamists then cite the incident where hundreds of Jews were executed by the Muslims during the time of Muhammad. They use this to try and assert that Islam and its Prophet are evil and cruel.
If it did, then the punishment for their outright treachery, high treason and conspiracy to murder, not to mention their repeated attempts on the lives of innocent Muslims, was simply put - execution. They were even given ample opportunity to surrender, admit their guilt and be recipients of the Prophet's clemency who had merely exiled other Jewish tribes for similar crimes, yet their blatant disregard for the lives of innocents and refusal to admit their outright treachery knelled their death bells. Some were even forgiven and allowed to go free - those who sought it. In any case, the Prophet didn’t order this execution anyway, it was a man of their own choosing - Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh who gave the verdict in accord with their own law as stated in Deuteronomy.
As for the method - beheading, when the death penalty was duly justified then the method of execution is a moot point. Beheading was the only sure-fire quick and painless way to dispatch a person from this world. That is, if this incident actually ever took place.
However, such blatant deceit and hiding of the facts never avails such extremist-minded critics of Islam. They don't say a word against their own nations who not only mercilessly maim, injure and kill thousands of men, women and children in their illegal wars but they also capture and torture those suspected of terrorism. In such draconian laws, they even permit the imprisonment of suspected criminals without a fair trial. Have these critics of Islam forgotten about Abu Gharaib and Guantanamo Bay? How one-sided and dual faced they are. True justice and fair mindedness is in condemning injustice and cruelty wherever it may be - even if it be against your own people.
As for the execution of the Jewish tribe, Banu Quraiza, the punishment for their outright treachery, high treason and conspiracy to murder, not to mention their repeated attempts on the lives of innocent Muslims, was simply put - execution. They were even given ample opportunity to surrender, admit their guilt and be recipients of the Prophet's clemency who had merely exiled other Jewish tribes for similar crimes, yet their blatant disregard for the lives of innocents and refusal to admit their outright treachery knelled their death bells. Some were even forgiven and allowed to go free - those who sought it. In any case, the Prophet didn’t order this execution anyway, it was a man of their own choosing - Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh who gave the verdict in accord with their own law as stated in Deuteronomy.
As for the method - beheading, when the death penalty was duly justified then the method of execution is a moot point. Beheading was the only sure-fire quick and painless way to dispatch a person from this world.
To save the life of a nation, you have to exterminate those hardened and rigid people who refuse to give up their evil ways. Is there any right minded person who wouldn't agree that the atrocities of ISIS most certainly merit the death penalty? In the same way, the early Muslims under Muhammad were faced with an enemy with a similar if not the same barbaric mindset of ISIS.
Islam does permit the execution of those hardened criminals and murderers who completely disregard the sanctity of life and unjustly go about murdering people. Beheading is only one method of execution as judicial punishment which, while Islam doesn't expressly teach or encourage, permits the use of to save society from dangerous criminals and convicted murderers.
In fact, Islam leaves it to the authorities to decide which method is most appropriate to execute a convicted felon. Beheading is deemed the quickest and most painless method. Apart from that, Islam even allows the family of the victim to forgive the murderer completely or receive blood money from the perpetrator as recompense - provided there is ample evidence to show his willingness to reform. Reformation being the absolute priority.
It’s like cutting off a diseased limb to save the rest of the body. However, when the entire body itself is diseased, cutting off how many ever limbs won’t solve the problem. In the same way, executing countless criminals won’t solve Saudi Arabia’s problems. A complete purification is required. The society must be purified and instilled with high moral values and noble qualities first. After that, if a limb has to be cut off from an otherwise healthy body, then who can argue against it. If the entire body is diseased in the first place, there’s no sense to cut limbs. A complete remedy is required.
This is why God always sends Messengers and raises Saints, scholars and holy people to reform society first - by preaching, reminding and goodly exhortation. Men of God always preach goodness, morality, forgiveness and justice.
Saudi Arabia has a long history of beheading for offences not even punishable according to authentic Islamic sources. Having imprisoned and punished the blogger Raif Badawi for blasphemy, they now seek to behead him for ‘renouncing’ Islam.
Leaving the actual method of punishment aside for a moment, as proven from the Qur'an (the primary Islamic authoritative text) above, the so-called ‘crime’ of blasphemy or apostasy itself has no punishment in Islamic scripture!
The Prophet Muhammad was no doubt the most abused, ridiculed and harassed man of his time (and arguably of this time also). He was mocked, ridiculed and labeled as a madman. If there was any blasphemy committed it was directly aimed at him yet even God did not permit him to retaliate or respond to the repeated insults. God told him (on more than one occasion) that he was only a warner and had no authority to compel them, let alone behead them. Who are ISIS or Saudi Arabia then, to start punishing people for something which even the Prophet didn’t.
Forget punishment for blasphemy which is mere worded insults, the Prophet even forgave those who tortured, fought and exiled him and his companions!
The Saudis gratuitously use beheading and harsh punishments without attempting to instill moral qualities within their citizens first.
So where do they get their warped sense of Islam from? They follow a particularly extreme, fanatical and radical form of Islam which was invented by one Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab. He believed in a puritanical form of Islam, purging innovations and ‘un-Islamic’ customs. This took an ultra-extreme form and along with Abdul Aziz (also known as Ibn Saud) used this ideology to seize power and influence in Arabia. And thus was the monarchical Saudi Arabia as we know it, born in 1932.
The revering of saints, something not un-Islamic in principal, has taken an extreme form in some parts of the Muslim world, with Muslims over-revering them to the extent of worshipping them rather than the one God - Allah. Muslims visit graves of saints, sufis and holy men of the past believing that they can grant their prayers and remove their woes.
It is this kind of Shirk (disbelief) that has brought about the puritanical Wahabi form of Islam. Today, they have gone to the extremes of wiping the names off of graves of revered and significant Islamic personalities and guards stand watch, reminding people to carry on walking and not to raise their hands in prayer to the men in graves.
However, while the Wahabi ideology claims to be purely unadulterated Islam, we find no authority in Islamic literature for the use of beheading and no punishment for apostasy. And by the way, lashing, stoning and chopping limbs off the way the Saudis and IS do is not at all condoned by Islam.
Stoning, quite frankly is a Biblical punishment and not taught in Islam. As for lashing and chopping off limbs, Islam permits it as a very last resort as a deterrent and punishment for repeat offenders and hardened criminals. The appropriate authorities are left to decide which punishment fits the crime. The door of repentance and reformation is always open. In a truly Islamic society, such harsh punishments would rarely if ever need be applied.
The Saudis (and those who love to assert that Islam is a violent, extremist religion) have evidently forgotten about the verses in the Qur’an which emphasise forgiveness, reformation, kind words and goodly exhortation. Islam is and always was a moderate religion. It believes in the power of words, reformation and patience as opposed to mere force and coercion.
China executes thousands a year yet we hear hardly a word of it from the mainstream media. The Saudis are just about to hit the 100 mark yet America has been executing people for decades. In fact, with their drone strikes, bombs and covert operations, they have most likely killed more human beings than any Muslim nation ever has! Just because beheading is particularly brutal and unsightly, it gets more coverage.
The double standards, phobia and hatred against Islam blinds Islamophobes and the media turn a blind eye to the illegal and quite horrific actions of the West.
There’s little doubt, if some Islamic nations are at fault, then so are many Western nations as well.
---------------
Atif Rashid, a freelance writer, is a student and aspiring journalist from Islamabad, Tilford, United Kingdom. Follow Atif on Twitter: @tif_49
-- Perspective: Saudis need 8 new executioners, since when is beheading Islamic?
This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Ahmadiyya Times. Ahmadiyya Times is not an organ of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, nor in any way associated with any of the community's official websites.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. Any comments irrelevant to the post's subject matter, containing abuses, and/or vulgar language will not be approved.