Islamic Crimes - Hudud and Tazir from Planck's Constant

I was born during World War Two in Uzbekistan, S.S.R. Since the war was still on my father had fears that the Nazis would one day arrive and start killing Jews and so I was baptized Catholic. This proved to have come in handy 10 years later at the school of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Bayonne, New Jersey. I was not welcome at the public schools nearest my home and so my parents asked if I wouldn't mind attending a Catholic school. Since I didn't know any better, I said that I didn't see any problem.

Well, I didn't learn until too late that when you misbehave at a parochial school you get your palm whacked with a wooden ruler. I can tell you that it does sting rather smartly. More than once a week I had to break out the ice at home to cool down the swelling. It was at Catechism classes that I learned there are two kinds of sins: mortal and venial.

In a somewhat like manner, Islamic Law breaks down behavior into two categories of offenses, Hudud (singular: Hadd) and Tazir. There are however some differences: The Catholic Church does not execute you for committing a mortal sin, it's merely your soul that pays the price, and paid in the next life, unless you repent. Also the sin is not mortal unless you had full knowledge that it was mortal and you committed it willingly. In Islam, if you accidentally or without full knowledge commit a Hadd offense you will still be executed. A woman who involuntarily has sexual relations (what we in the civilized world call rape) with an unmarried partner will still be executed unless she can gather up 4 male or 8 female witnesses to the rape. Of course, even if she is exonerated by an Islamic court she is likely to be honor-killed by her relatives anyway for disgracing her family.

Back in February of 2006 when the Danish Cartoon Affair was in full steam, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Seedes, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, called on the world's Muslims to reject apologies for the "slanderous" caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, and demanded the authors and publishers of the cartoons be tried and punished [Thought Minion].

For my Muslim friends who do not understand how it works in civilized countries: defendants are not tried and punished. They are tried and, if found guilty, and only if found guilty, are then punished. Even then, insulting someone is rarely a capital offense.

For my non-Muslim friends, just so you know what "punished" means in this instance in any Islamic country: slander against the Prophet is an offense against God. Offenses against God are a Sharia category of crime called Hudud (the most severe of crimes: murder, theft, adultery, blasphemy).

The punishments for Hudud or Hadd crimes are certain and immutable, as opposed to Tazir crimes (civil crimes) for which the Quran has no set punishments. The punishment Saudi Arabia has in mind for the cartoonists is death.

A careless observer may think that Shariah is similar to any sane society's laws but with a religious component, but you would be mistaken. It's true that at first glance one may try to match the concepts of Hadud and Tazir with the familiar American legal designations such felony and misdemeanor but they are not even close. American crimes require someone to be actually injured. A Hadd crime can consist of merely questioning a passage in the Quran which is punishable by death.

Take for example the case of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, an Afghan journalism student sentenced to death for insulting Islam. The crime? He disrupted classes at Balkh University by asking questions about women's rights under Islam [WTOP News].

Shariah law is the most barbaric, savage piece of inhumanity that a primitive culture could create. It is by no stretch of anyone's imagination a system of Law and Justice.