Hudud, and more
By Yow Hong Chieh, The nut Graph
THE current conversation about PAS's plans for an Islamic state and the ipso facto imposition of syariah is incomplete. With everyone latching onto hudud as the locus for debate, it would seem the larger picture has been obscured somewhat.
This inquiry into the implications of syariah will begin with an examination of a couple of aspects of Islamic criminal law which have been overlooked, namely qisas and diyya.
Qisas literally means "retribution" and is described in Surah Al-Baqara, 178 of the Quran: "[T]he law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the woman for the woman." (translation by Yusuf Ali). While it is true our civil laws currently provide for similar action whenever it condemns convicted murderers to the gallows (whatever our views are on capital punishment), qisas also extends to lesser crimes.
This eye-for-an-eye precept was demonstrated most literally in Iran in 2008 when Ameneh Bahrami, who had been blinded with acid by a spurned suitor, was given permission by the syariah court to pour acid into the eyes of her attacker. Her own description of how the punishment would be administered? "He will lie in front of me drugged. I will feel my way to his eyes and then drop 20 drops of acid in each eye … He made fun of me in front of the court. Now he is whimpering for mercy, asking me to leave him at least one eye. But it is too late for that."
While qisas is by no means mandatory — the Quran recommends that wrongdoers be forgiven in the name of charity and be mulcted instead — its very presence opens the door to the enactment of cruel and unusual punishment in the name of justice.
