verse 2:178 ? "the free for the free the slave for the
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what do u guys think about this understanding from RK's translation
In dealing with murder, the Quran definitely discourages capital punishment (2179).
"The free for the free, the slave for the slave,and the female for the female" (217.Due to human meanness and injustice, many people cannot even imagine what this Quranic law says.
They refuse to accept the clear injunctions that strict equivalence must be observed - if a woman kills a man, or a man kills a woman, or a slave kills a free person, or a free person kills a slave, capital punishment cannot be applied.
The Quran prefers that the murderer compensate the victim's family. Killing the murderer does not bring the victim back, nor does the family of the victim benefit from executing the murderer. The compensation, however, must be sufficient to be a deterrent for others. In Islam (Submission), the victim and/or the victim's family are the judges for all crimes; they decide what the punishment shall be under the supervision of a person who knows the Quran.but i once asked Muhammad Asadi( www.members.aol.com/silence004 ) the same question about 2178 , he said that 2178 is about warring groups or parties . and the "free for the free , slave for slave " thing is to control bloodshed during battle or conflicts between groups . if a freeman killed a slave or a slave killed a freeman , he(the murderer) cannot be killed in retaliation . he said this verse is not about individual crime .
but how is this verse only about groups ?
i emailed Asadi again , but he has not replied yet .
salam.
fahad. -
I think we misunderstood word qiSaaS. It's a verbal noun form III and for it to mean "recompense" it should be in form VI (reciprocal verb). Its root is talking about cutting unnecessarily pieces from something, so we have it as qaSaS for a story w/o details, just what is most important, it's "a short story". We have same meaning of the verb, as well as "going by shorter path" (taking a shortcut), as in 1864 or in 2811. There's no more word forms, besides qiSaaS, from this root. If we look at its passive maqSooS or a noun of tool meqaSS, we can see that they talk about trimming, clipping, for example hair. In my language hair is called "kosa" from the same root, and scissors are "makaze" from meqaSS, and "kus" is a shorten animal tail (or no tail). Slightly different root q-S-b gives qaSSaab for a butcher, who cuts pieces of flesh.
I understood that qiSaaS means "(the) exception" from a civil norm of a society where Qur'an came. I understood that they had a rule "free man by free man, slave by slave, woman by woman" (I think a proposition bi- matches English by in most cases). So, believers were ordered to leave this norm and to forgive (or better "to pardon" instead.
Those who understand the essence/heart/core (oolu-l-elbaab) can take care of themselves and qiSaaS will give them life.