Two characteristics that determine the motive of one’s acts and deeds are inherent in every human. One: Aspiration for doing good. The other: Fear for refraining from doing bad. These are intrinsic human values too. In particular to the other characteristic, a person is fearful of being seen or watched by some other person(s). In most of the cases, somehow he can manage evading from being seen by others. In some of such cases he can arrange to manipulate the situation as persons and their eyes watching him are ‘visible’. If there are some eyes hidden, it deters a person from committing vicious, immoral or criminal acts. Sting operations and CCTV cameras come in this category. But their effectiveness is hardly 1-2 per cent. This is because these are made, installed and used by the very humans who can somehow be managed and manipulated – sometimes by hook, sometime by crook. This is the fact of the matter all of us do observe and experience in day to day civic life.
Even if caught, there is no dearth of ways and means to evade punishment. Money, power, links with politicians and rulers, or being one’s own self at the helm, or witnesses getting hostile under duress or threat during judicial process, are only some of these ways and means. This is the lacunae in justice delivery system; the chances of fearfulness have been failed drastically as deterrence for crimes. Then what is the way out? It seems there is none.
The people, who believe that God sees everything, believe it too that God is inactive, inert, blind, unconcerned and indifferent vis-à-vis all that happens in this world of humans. To them He is nothing more than a mute spectator. This misbelief is the root cause of sinful and criminal deeds committed with utmost impunity. This makes people feel that there are not, rather cannot be any sure shot remedies to this tangle. But no, it is not so. Islam has the remedy. An amazing and meticulous remedy!
Islam instils in its adherents the firm belief in an Invisible Eye. That’s God’s eye. This eye sees even the minutest sin, and smallest crime committed any moment, anywhere on earth, even in the darkest night or in complete seclusion, away from all human eyes and spy cameras and CCTV cameras lens. No human can evade this Eye. The committer of sin, the perpetrator of crime would surely stand accountable before God on the Day of Judgement in the Life Hereafter.
In Islam, God is All-seeing, All-knowing, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, All-Powerful and All-Wise. These attributes of God are mentioned in the Qur’ān, Divine Manual of Guidance, many times, viz.; Baseer 51 times, Khabeer 43 times, Aleem 162 times, Azeez 99 times, Qadeer/Qadir 52 times.
A firm belief in these attributes of His makes the most real and effective deterrent for all sorts of vicious, immoral, illicit and criminal deeds. No chance of this ‘Witness’ getting hostile. No chance of His Justice getting influenced by manipulation, coercion, and abuse of money and power. Islam invites all humankind to come to it and make the world free from crimes.