Conflicting Perspectives on Blasphemy and the Practice of Taking the Law into One's Own Hands, Which Is Illegal and Punishable Under Islamic Sharia – Part 1
By Ghulam
Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
11
August 2022
Taking the
Law into Hands Is a Criminal and Punishable Act in Islamic Sharia
Main
Points:
1.
Instead
of being useful and offering solutions to the problems, a number of articles
are merely contributing to confuse and frighten the public.
2.
No
average Muslim has the power to impose punishment on others, regardless of
whether it is sanctioned by the Quran or a Hadith. Only an Islamic court or the
Sultan of Islam has this power.
3.
Some
folks don't even think twice before charging that tragedies like the murder of
Kanhaiyalal continue to occur because this Hadith is taught in madrasas.
4.
Madrasas
do not teach this Hadith as part of their curriculum, but those affiliated with
mosques and madrasas should have responded to this accusation on social media.
5.
Any
issue deserves an effective reaction, and any ineffective effort to solve the
issue is just a waste of time and energy.
------
Following
the murder of Kanhaiya Lal, dozens of Indian Islamic scholars released
condemnatory statements, all of which shared the same tenet that no one has the
authority to take the law into their hands in Islamic Sharia. The Indian
Islamic clerics who were featured in the report of the condemnation statements
published on the website newageIslam.com did not examine the reliability and
weakness of the chain of narration of the Hadith or whether it could or could
not be used as evidence in the blasphemy case. However, all the Islamic
scholars concurred that taking the law into one's hands is criminal and
punishable under Islamic Sharia.
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In my
view the most effective fatwa in this regard is the one that was issued by
Mufti Saleem Noori from the Dargah Aala Hazrat in Bareilly Sharif. Citing the
edict of Aala Hazrat Imam Ahmad Raza, this fatwa explicitly states that only
the Islamic court and the Sultan of Islam have the power to punish blasphemers.
Therefore, in the perspective of Islamic Sharia, anyone who takes the law into
his own hands and punishes the offenders himself is not only a murderer but
also deserving of punishment. This fatwa will surely be useful and beneficial
to those who follow Aala Hazrat in putting an end to any radicalism connected
to blasphemy.
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Some
authors and speakers continue to provide the present-day heedless commoners
with an incorrect evaluation of the authenticity and weaknesses of the Sanad
(chain of narration) of the pertinent Hadith. It would be good if they instead
informed the common people through gatherings, conferences, and Friday sermons
that any Islamic punishment, regardless of whether it is supported by the Holy
Quran, Hadith (Sunnah), Ijmaa, or Qiyas, can only be enacted by the Islamic
Court or the Sultan of Islam and that neither of these entities exists in our
country.
In this
situation, we are compelled to use one of the two alternative channels to
address our issues: either we file complaints with the Indian court, or else we
must be patient and surrender our problems and matters to our rightful owner,
Allah Almighty. No Indian, Muslim or not, has the right to take the law into
their own hands and judge for themselves, even if there is a delay in their
complaint being registered or in receiving justice. This is because anyone who
takes the law into their own hands is guilty and subject to punishment in the
eyes of the Indian court.
If our
imams, scholars, and people who write, read, and comment on social
media—regardless of their affiliation with any community, madrasas and
religious institutions, modern educational institutions, colleges, and
universities, or whether they are simply educated gentlemen—helped to publicise
such basic truths, the problem under discussion or the troublesome issue of
enforcing any Islamic criminal laws would be largely or completely resolved.
However,
instead of generalizing such clear-cut ideas and proposing solutions to
problems, some people prefer to spread more confusion due to their lack of
knowledge. Ever since the tragic murder of Kanhaiyalal, several articles,
particularly those written in English, have been published that, rather than
being effective and providing solutions to the issues, are only serving to
confuse and worry the public.
One of
the key reasons for this is the varying opinions on the reliability and chain
of narration of this Hadith. Some claim that though the Hadith that mandates
the death penalty for blasphemers is weak and unreliable, it is still
admissible because it is backed by further evidence, hence it must be implemented
in the blasphemy law. They contend that when a weak Hadith is supported by
greater evidence, it becomes authentic and acceptable in action-related topics.
Others disagree, arguing that this Hadith is still weak and cannot be relied
upon to guide action-related matters or blasphemy law. Some writings even go so
far as to assert that this Hadith is fabricated.
In
other words, rather than offering any solutions to the associated problems,
these writers have just served to add to the perplexity of common people
through their conflicting writings. Notwithstanding the possibility that they
did not intend to write such things with the unwelcome aim, it is necessary to
make it clear that they are perplexed and unable to come up with a solution to
the Blasphemy-related worry.
Some
men don't even hesitate to accuse that because this Hadith is taught in
madrasas, tragedies like the murder of Kanhaiyalal keep happening. Despite the
fact that madrasas do not teach this Hadith as a part of their curriculum,
those affiliated with mosques and madrasas should have responded to this
accusation publicly and honestly on social media. They should have emphasised
that even if a punishment is sanctioned by the Quran or a Hadith, only an
Islamic court or Sultan of Islam has the authority to impose that punishment
and that no common Muslim possesses that authority, as was made clear in the
fatwa issued from Bareilly. But how can one expect such a straightforward idea
to be preached and spread by those who focus on obscuring the issues rather
than offering a solution?
Any
issue deserves an effective reaction, and any ineffective effort to solve the
issue is just a waste of time and energy. Those who devote all of their time
and energy to the authenticity, weakness, admissibility or inadmissibility of
the Blasphemy-related hadith cannot dispute that the Holy Quran makes it
abundantly clear that adultery is punishable by a hundred lashes and theft by
the amputation of hands. The Holy Quran, not any weak or authentic Hadith, is what
validates the punishment for adultery or theft. Can these people then assert
that the common Muslims have the authority to take the law into their hands and
punish offenders like adulterers and thieves? I'm sure they won't ever be able
to assert that. In this regard, they will have to cite Islamic jurisprudential
principles as well as the opinions of the jurists and their forebears, whose
teachings are also imparted to the students of Islamic madrasas. These
principles state that regardless of whether a punishment is authorised by the
Quran or a Hadith, only an Islamic court or the Sultan of Islam has the
authority to impose it, and that no ordinary Muslim has the authority to take
the law into his hands.
I don't
want to contrast Indian law with Islamic law. However, I'll use our country, as
an illustration, to demonstrate that our country too has a death sentence law,
even though it only applies to the rarest of rare offences. However, only our
Indian courts have the power to sentence criminals to prison or death. No
common Indian person has the authority to impose punishment on criminals by
taking the law into his hands. Any Indian who takes the law into his hands will
be considered guilty and punishable. At this point, no one asserts that the
murderer took the law into his own hands to punish criminals because Indian law
already stipulated such a punishment. Even though Indian law clearly states
that some offences are punishable by death, legal experts, at that time, only
take into account the fact that only Indian courts, not common people, have the
authority to apply the punishments.
How
simple it is, and practically every Indian citizen is aware of this. In a
similar vein, it is crucial for every Muslim to first comprehend and then
convey to others that no ordinary Muslim is permitted to impose punishment on
others; rather, anyone who does so will be deemed to have violated the law and
will be subject to punishment under Islamic Sharia, regardless of whether the
punishment was mandated by the Quran or a Hadith. It's crucial to emphasise to
them that Indian law, not Islamic law, governs our nation of India, which is
something that every Indian must respect.
The
aforementioned notion is relatively simple to comprehend and convey to the
average person. However, if you present incomplete research about any Hadith,
its principles, its narration and its application in front of the common folks,
they would get perplexed. Even if you present them with academic
interpretations or complete research about that Hadith, they will not be able
to understand them since the science or understanding of the Hadith is not
something that the general public or non-experts can easily understand or
explain. For the science of Hadith or the jurisprudence of Hadith, the pious
predecessors (Salaf-e-Saliheen) have laid down certain principles which have
been in practice since the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him). If one does
not grasp and embrace these principles, one runs the risk of misinterpreting
the Hadith.
Among
the arts and principles that must be understood for the comprehension of
hadiths are the knowledge of the Quran (ilm al-Quran), the knowledge of hadith
(ilm al-Hadith), the knowledge of jurisprudence (ilm al-Fiqh), the Principles
of Exegesis (usul al-Tafsir), the knowledge of hadith-narration (ilm riwayat
al-hadith), the Knowledge of Dirāyat al-ḥadīth (lit. comprehension
of hadith), the science of rijal (a branch of hadith sciences that examines the
characteristics of hadith transmitters, particularly their trustworthiness in
hadith transmission, as well as the associated standards and rules), the
science of Al-Jarḥ wa l-taʿdīl (a
subfield of hadith sciences that assesses the trustworthiness and unreliability
of hadith transmitters and determines whether to accept or reject certain
hadiths as authentic or unreliable) etc. However, if one is untrained in these
fields and relies entirely on the literal meaning of any hadith, one will
interpret many hadiths incorrectly.
Let the
hadith specialists and experts handle it; this is their area of expertise. The
general public and experts from other fields are therefore recommended to study
the subject at hand rather than getting sucked by their hypotheses and
allegations in this domain; which have been highlighted and repeated throughout
the aforementioned lines. As mentioned above, only the Islamic court and the
Sultan of Islam have the power to impose Islamic punishments. No ordinary
Muslim is permitted to take the law into his own hands and neither Islamic law
nor the right to impose Islamic punishments is recognised by our country. Above
all, Islamic Sharia declares that anyone who takes the laws into his or her
hands is a criminal and punishable under law.
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A regular Columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Ghulam Ghaus
Siddiqi Dehlvi is a Classical Islamic scholar with a Sufi background and
English-Arabic-Urdu Translator.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-ideology/-perspectives-blasphemy-illegal-sharia-part-1-/d/127693
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