Last week we discussed killing caused by personal vendetta, the largest cause of murders as mentioned by the recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. The murder caused by personal vendetta also invites what in Islamic parlance is called qisas (law of retribution). The beauty of qisas is that if implemented in the Qur’anic spirit, it promises life even in revenge, retaliation or retribution and thus ensures ultimate peace in society.
In the pre-Islamic society of Arabia, revenge knew no bounds among the tribes who waged intermittent battles and people belonging to two different tribes used to fight in retaliation and counter retaliation of some murder for years and decades. This was a very chaotic situation. It was impossible for Allah the Almighty, Who was revealing the Qur’an to give His Final Message to humanity for all times to come, to ignore this situation. He did reveal an ayah to get man rid of it. “There is life for you, men of understanding, in this law of just retribution, so that you may remain God-fearing.” (The Qur’an – 2:179)
Let’s see how this act of retribution paves way for peace. First, as this law deters a would-be murderer from committing the crime or even threatening the lives of others or causing physical injury to a person, it saves life in the first place. Secondly, if some relative of the victim chooses to remit the punishment (diyat, a form of punishment in Islamic penal law), a life will be saved with this goodwill gesture. In the Islamic scheme of things, killing a person is tantamount to killing the entire humanity and saving the life of one person is saving the entire humanity. Therefore, the rule of qisas read with the ayah 5:32 contributes to saving human life in a more inclusive way.
The law of retribution is not applied to merely any kind of killing, but only for intentional murder and under certain conditions laid down by scholars; the conditions include two contending families or tribes who are willing to take revenge of the murder of a person from one family or tribe.
It is also not that anybody is entitled to exact retribution himself; it is necessary that he must refer the matter to a court of law to adjudicate the matter.
In an Islamic society, the court is bound to implement the law of retribution as it is obligatory. However, it can be waived if the victim’s family or one of them (provided he is an adult and sane) pardons the offender; it is called diyat as said above, or the offender dies before retribution is exacted against him. This waiving of retribution renders the payment of blood money obligatory.