The principle of Qisas has been grossly misrepresented by extremists, who have invoked it to justify many kinds of barbaric acts. A deviant perspective of the principle of qisas is that if someone kills Muslim civilians, it is permissible to retaliate to kill non-Muslim civilians. This is wrong for many reasons. There is no indication that qisas allows for revenge to be taken against those who had no part in harming the invoker, or any other Muslims.
Islamic boundaries may not be breached, even if the other party breaches them. If a Muslim woman (or even man) is raped by a non-Muslim, it is not permissible for Muslims to react by carrying out similar acts in revenge; this is because rape is forbidden in every case without exceptions, as is killing civilians deliberately. The rules of warfare are set by Allah, we do not just copy whatever non-Muslims do in warfare and take them to be our moral example. How would our religion be superior if it was just about following the examples of what others do? Extremists often believe that the rules of warfare are set by our adversaries; which override the rules set by Allah. Apart from the fact that this view is highly illogical (for what is the point of Islamic rules of warfare if instead it simply boils down to copying whatever the enemy does), it is hypocritical to on one hand condemn an enemy for carrying out atrocities and then proudly copying them. It should be noted that even when Muslims were horribly oppressed and massacred by the Mongols, Muslim still treated their captives and civilians well.
Two quotes from the Quran used by extremists to justify Qisas against civilians are:
1. 2:194
Then whoever transgresses the prohibition against you, you transgress likewise against him
This refers to the prohibition of fighting on the sacred month whereby combat is usually prohibited. It means that if you are attacked during this month then the prohibition can be overturned and you can fight back in self-defence. Also, the second part of the aya is omitted by the extremists, it states:
Allah is with those who guard against violating the bounds set by Him
Therefore, Muslims are reminded that Islamic boundaries MUST be maintained (i.e, not killing civilians nor violating other rules of combat).
2. 16:126
“And if you punish (your enemy, O you believers in the Oneness of Allah), then punish them with the like of that with which you were afflicted”
This aya refers to a case whereby if you have an argument with someone, you may only do to them so far as what they have done to you. It does NOT imply that the gloves come off and you can commit every atrocity that is forbidden in Islam they have done to you. It is basically telling us not to escalate situations in arguments. As with the first example, extremists wilfully ign
I just notice the post was cut, so I the rest is as follows:
ignore the second part of the aya:
but if you are patient, it will certainly be best for those who are patient
Therefore, it is actually preferable not to retaliate at all. However, patience and mercy are Islamic principles alien to extremists.
IS has adopted an extreme interpretation of qisas. It has punished Iraqi Christians by blowing up a church and killing 58 in retaliation to the mistreatment of two alleged female Muslim converts from Coptic Christianity in Egypt. It also beheaded 21 Coptic migrant workers in Libya in revenge for the same incident in Egypt. The execution of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kesesbeh (in revenge to killing Muslim civilians, albeit due to collateral damage) by burning was also highly problematic for a variety of reasons. IS supporters are never able to answer when asked why IS does not apply this punishment to their own members, who have killed an immeasurable number of Muslim civilians over the years during their bombings of civilian areas in Iraq (even though they do not consider Shiites to be Muslims, it is undeniable that many Sunnis were killed in the attacks). The Amman bombings carried out by AQI (which later became IS) killed 60 people, almost entirely Muslims – including 38 from a Palestinian wedding. Why were members of the group not also judged according to the IS view of qisas? This is another example of extremist hypocrisy.
I think its very important to clarify these issues which seem to be used by some misguided individuals as justifications for obscene actions which violate Islamic principles at their very core. You identified classic ways in which some people manipulate the distort the religion for their own purposes shamelessly. According to the perverted view which you have refuted, anybody can be killed for anything. I could set someone on fire in the street in the USA because American bombs have killed Muslims in Iraq. That pensioner had nothing to do with it, hes just someone on the street who played no part in it so why does he have to suffer?
So much of the Quran and hadiths refer to mercy and justice, but the Daesh mindset seems to just disregard them and even opposes them.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
We apologise but you have been denied access to report posts in this thread. This could be due to excessively reporting posts and not understanding our forum rules. For assistance or information, please use the forum help thread to request more information. Jazakallah
