Law and Punishment
Sharia law, and the necessity to apply it stringently, with an eye to Wahhabi-style justice constitutes pretty rough stuff.The threat of retributive punishment equal to what has been meted out to someone else should be enough to keep people in line, one would think. Other than those who act spontaneously, in a fit of emotional passion. And isn't that how, for the most part, people lose themselves in performing violent actions against others?
That is, usually law-abiding people, otherwise capable of self-restraint.
If you're a resident and a citizen of Saudi Arabia judgements can be harsh and unemotionally drastic, when jurisprudence Sharia-style permits punishment that represents as an "eye for an eye". To the victim of a violent attack, left without his or her full physical health, bent on revenge, it might seem reasonable to insist that an attacker who caused him to lose an eye suffer a like fate.
In another world, another culture, where different values prevail, not so.
But in Saudi Arabia if a 22-year-old man has been paralyzed as a result of a violent fight he was involved in, sees a bleak future ahead for him, and insists to the presiding judge that he has the right to invoke similar judgement on the future of his attacker, he is taken seriously. Not considered to be a vengeful lout, but an entitled victim.
And when Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi insisted that Judge Saoud bin Suleiman inflict like penalty on his conflict-opponent the judge evidently saw no reasonable objection was required in the fulfillment of his legal duty. The judge obviously considers it to be his legal and religious obligation to take such a request seriously. The attacker must have his spinal column severed.
And to this end the judge applied himself assiduously in the pursuance of his juridical duty. For he has taken it upon himself to contact several Saudi hospitals to enquire of them whether they might be so kind as to assist him in imposing sentence upon the accused. The response from the King Khaled Hospital in Tabuk was less than satisfactory; they doubted they had the expertise to perform the required surgery.
While the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh responded equally unhelpfully. Claiming that "inflicting such harm is not possible", obviously adhering to the physicians' code of conduct to "do no harm". Wahhabi-style Sharia jurisprudence is obviously far less concerned respecting 'harm' done to human beings when a permissible sentence of suffering an "eye for an eye" has been imposed.
The dissatisfied victim and his family are adamant, however, insisting that the sentence be carried through:
"We are asking for our legal right under Islamic law. There is no better word than God's word - an eye for an eye."
Towers of the Holy Mosque at dusk. Photo
Ammar Abd Rabbo.Labels: Human Rights, Middle East, Religion, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 20, 2010
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