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Dear members of the list,
Assalamu Alaikum. I am forwarding one of my artticles,
which I wrote several years ago , refute the arguement that Islamic
law does not help in combatting sexual crime. I am
sending this now as I have noticed lot of misconception on this matter in a
number of groups.A professor of a university in Bangladesh has written in
a national daily that Shariah law does not help in checking sexual crime as it
makes a provision of four witnesses to prove the occurrence of rape which is
very difficult to fulfil. His accusation against Islam is that Islam does not
play the proper role to stop rape. It is because of his inadequate knowledge of
Islam that the professor has thought like that. The fact is that whereas the
modern law terms only the intimate contact between two married man and woman as
punishable crime, Islam defines any intimate contact outside marriage as sexual
crime and makes provision of punishment for this. So his complaint against
Islam is not justified. I am sorry to say that the professor bears a wrong
notion about the Islamic law of evidence. As far as Islamic law is concerned, if
four witnesses prove the crime then the imposition of 'Hadd' will be
applied on the accused. But if a less number of witnesses prove it, it does not
mean that the guilty person will be exempted from punishment rather he will be
punished under Ta'jir. 'Ta'jir' is the punishment which is not determined by the
text of the holy Qur'an or Sunnah but by the court of an Islamic country or by
the parliament in modern days on
the basis of Shariah. The provision of Ta'jir has been prevalent in Islamic
tradition since the time of the Prophet (SAWS). In
This
article below may be useful to you.
Shah Abdul Hannan
Some Issues Regarding Rape
Cases
By Shah Abdul Hannan Translation: Mahmudul Hasan The news stories of
different national dailies clearly show that crime especially the sexual crimes
are on the increase in our country. As reported by the daily Inqilab in its
This alarming tendency of sexual crime prevailing in our
society has definitely appalled us and made the people panic-stricken. The
principal reasons for this frequency of rape cases as have been identified in
different seminars held for the last few months on the issue are as follows:
1. The over all deterioration
of law and order in the country and the failure and inefficiency of police
administration and the absence of their active role in applying law are largely
responsible for this ever increasing tendency of different types of crimes
specially rape cases. It is evident that in most cases the law-enforcing
agencies fail to detect and apprehend the criminals.
2. It takes a long time to
prosecute and take legal action against the criminals because of the tardiness
of the judicial inquiry and delay in trial of the cases. As a result the fear
and apprehension of punishment is growing less among the criminals.
3. All kinds of pornography and
porno-literature as well as obscene film are greatly responsible for the rape
cases. The authority, to speak the truth, has no control over the pervasive
pornography of our society which are almost open to the people of all classes
and ages to tempt them into sensual indulgences and the ultimate victims are the
women. These types of pornography are definitely leading our population astray,
impairing the moral health of the young generation and contaminating the whole
society gradually. 4. The fourth notable reason
for this tendency of crime is the absence of morality from the curricula of our
education system. In the name of some philosophy or doctrine, religious
education has, in fact, been made marginal.
These are the main causes as pointed out in different
seminars held in the capital city for the last few months in 1998 on the
contention. And the speakers of these seminars have opined that the solution to
the problem of rape cases lies in giving proper attention to the above mentioned
matters. It sounds odd and absurd
that few intellectuals have given their opinion that the eviction of
brothels is the main cau se of the spread of rape cases (Ref. The
Such assessment and
suggestion of a section of people as well as some newspapers is completely
untenable and is detrimental to ethical values of the nation. It is not only
repugnant to the basic teachings of all religions but also irrational. Let us
examine the situation of the USA where the occurrences of rape cases are
approximately 2 lakhs in a year as is known from different reports though there
is no dearth of prostitutes or brothels in that country. Whereas the number of
rape cases in two months (April and May 1998) is 212 in our country, which means
the total yearly occurrences are approximately 1500. Taking the matter of
demography into account we can draw a conclusion that the rate of rape case is
80 to 100 times greater in the I am surprised how can a sensible man make such proposal
to solve the problem of rape cases. If the establishment of brothels is the
remedy for this social disease then it will require setting up brothels in large
number of places in the country because sometimes in the villages also rape
cases take place. If brothels are established in large numbers, the victims will
be the defenseless poor women who will be abducted and be coerced to become
prostitutes to satisfy the demand of that great number of brothels. So making
such proposal seems unbecoming of any conscientious man. To give sincere attention to the four points mentioned
before is essentially the demand of the situation. The authority should
seriously think about it if they want to check this increasing tendency of rape
cases in real sense. In addition, the authority concerned should proceed with a
long-term well-thought plan of a 'social engineering' so that everyone can get
married and live with family easily and can satisfy his physical urge through
family life. So the matter of social engineering should be taken seriously and
be included in our national plan. A professor
of a university has written in a national daily that Shariah law does not help
in checking sexual crime as it makes a provision of four witnesses to prove the
occurrence of rape which is very difficult to fulfil. His accusation against
Islam is that Islam does not play the proper role to stop rape. It is because of
his inadequate knowledge of Islam that the professor has thought like that. The
fact is that whereas the modern law terms only the intimate contact between two
married man and woman as punishable crime, Islam defines any intimate contact
outside marriage as sexual crime and makes provision of punishment for this. So
his arraignment against Islam is not justified. I am sorry to say that the
professor bears a wrong notion about the Islamic law of witness. As far as
Islamic law is concerned, if four witnesses prove the crime then the imposition
of 'Hadd' will be applied on the accused. But if a less number of
witnesses prove it, it does not mean that the guilty person will be exempted
from punishment rather the punitive measures will be determined by 'Ta'jir'.
'Ta'jir' is the punishment which is not determined by the text of the holy
Qur'an or Sunnah but by the court of an Islamic country or by the parliament in modern days on the basis
of Shariah. The provision of Ta'jir has been prevalent in Islamic tradition
since the time of the Prophet (SAWS). In In this regard it should be mentioned here
that the idea that all the four witnesses must be from amongst the male is
not unanimously agreed upon as far
as the opinions of different Islamic scholars are concerned. To a number of
scholars they may be females also. (Ref. 'Islami Samaje Nari' by Mawlana
Jalaluddin Ansar; 'Islamic Teaching Course Vol. 3, by Dr Jamal Al-Badawi.). Imam
Juhri, Imam Awzai, Ibn Hajm and some other scholars have given such opinion.
According to Allama Jamal Badawi, not only women witness are admissible, there
is no difference in the number of male and female witness in this respect
(Islamic Teachings Course; Vol. 3). The reason of this difference of opinion
among the scholars is the contention that whether the witnesses will be male or
female is a matter of interpretation and not settled by the Qur'an or Hadeeth
definitively. Thus it is firmly established that in Islam no one can escape the
consequence of the crime of rape or adultery; he will face the punishment of
Hadd or Ta'jir depending on the nature of the proof. Islam is that noble ideology that negates
and strictly prohibits any sexual contact outside marriage and it is against all
sorts of sensual relation outside marriage and it is against any idea of living
together. What Islam wants is to present a society free of all kinds of
immorality and illegal sexual indulgence. The moral responsibility of the
Muslims is to establish a sound and well disciplined society through various
means including moral uplift.
*************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended: http://www.islamonline.net http://www.islam-guide.com http://www.prophetmuhammadforall.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
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