This is our Religion, Part 15

The Boundary of the Drunk and the Drugged

Al-Khamr (Alcohol): What covers the mind and disables its function whether it was liquid or solid substances like Hashish, Opium and the like.

Some people imagine that Khamr is only what makes you drunk and is made from grape, barely or cane juice and that is wrong because nations through which Alcohol is common is far more better than those drugged by Hashish, opium and Qat (a kind of drug).

It is senseless for the legislator to prohibit the least harmful of those while leaving the others without prohibition. Wine was known from the ancient times as paralyzing to the thinking, makes judgment unwise and corrupts imagination.

The poet said:
I drank the sin until my mind went astray�
It is the quality of it to take the minds go away�

Another poet said:
When I'm drunk I become the Lord of the president's palace and the river
But when I'm awake I find that I'm only lord of my little sheep.

And confusion in looking at things in this way degrading for the human�s value and dignity and deprives him from the greatest advantage he was blessed with over other creatures and that is his magnificently smart mind.

And when the Quran ruled that with the prohibition of wine it mentioned its bad psychological and mental consequences:
Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer: will ye not then abstain? [5:91]

But when one loses the hold of his thinking, his extinct and desires awaken and are set loose without any strings that holds them. This is why you see the drunk or drugged act like wild animals or beasts.

A lot of nations have sensed the danger of this situation on its present and future, so they fought against drugs and drinking strongly to the extent that some carried out the execution penalty upon those who promote drugs and dealings with them. In the mean time a lot of voices rose up to shout against drinking and its dangers.

But people's matters are incomprehensible, from one point they know that smoking is useless and that it burns money and health in addition to the terrible diseases it brings. Despite all that a lot of young and old fall for this foolish habit; smoking and don't seem to care for what it brings upon them from dangers and harm.
It seems like some of them is trying to escape the sense of reality into a temporary comma or an available joy that they think it gives some relief to their nerves but even if that is true then what comes after this pleasure is a painful wakening.

Some drugs or drinks might take those abusing them to a world of carelessness and recklessness. They might even bring them some stupid crazy pleasure but the sorrow and pain that comes after awakening is doubled, in addition to the various diseases these substances might bring to the human body.
This is the secret in the Quran�s expressing about Drinking and Gambling:

They ask thee concerning wine and gambling. Say: "In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit." They ask thee how much they are to spend;
say: "What is beyond your needs." Thus doth Allah make clear to you His Signs: in order that ye may consider. [2:219]

That means the inevitable harmful results. These results are far more serious than what a drunken or drugged is getting from joy and pleasure. In addition, the animosity that gambling causes is greater than the benefit it brings to the poor.

In the first third of this century the US wanted to prohibit Alcohol after what it saw from the harms it causes and legalized that by a good law. But the US failed to apply it because it didn't take slow steps toward applying it like Islam did. Had it applied it gradually then it would have succeeded in protecting the public from this plague.

Islam prohibits wines and punishes those abusing them with eighty lashes and this is the boundary the nation had agreed upon because a lot of narration came of the penalty of the drunk.
Some called for hitting and insulting him, others came with forty lashes and some of them reached eighty lashes.
Some of the companions saw that those who get drunk would speak falsely then let them be punished by the boundary of slandering; eighty lashes.
We would like to point here that Islam punishes on drinking wines whether one gets drunk or not.
In my point of view I see that in the environments where drugs and wines are abused widely the death penalty would be of greater benefit both to life and the hereafter.

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APOSTASY

Defection from Islam cuts the renegade from the society and deprives him from the right of life! This verdict made some people to riot against it, and they saw in it a confiscation to the freedom of opinion; for every one to believe or disbelieve.

We respect anyone's right to do so but this right is granted while the individual is uncertain about matters then it is his right to study things carefully and balance and decide among them. He might even remain in this state all his life.

If one preferred atheism, Judaism, or Christianity no one would stand in his way and he would still have the right for a secured peaceful life.

But if one chooses Islam he should be sincere to it, and he should respond with its prohibitions, orders, and all its guidance.
And here we wonder, is it a freedom of opinion that when one embraces Islam, to go ahead and break its chains and demolish it boundaries?
In other words, does freedom of opinion gives the right to anyone in any human community to go against this society, destroying its foundations and fight against its children?

Is betrayal to the country or spying for its enemies a kind of freedom?
Is spreading chaos in its corners and mocking its rituals and holiness, freedom?

The issue of defection is a case that needs explanation for us to understand its dimensions. Islam is introduced to the common and genius as a creed and legislation, its book and way of its Prophet pbuh establish as an example that Allah is one, and the hereafter is right, reprimand is right, and fasting is right. The meaning of all this is that he who embraces Islam accepts all these teachings and carries them out.
If one came and said, I believe in Allah but I reject the hereafter, or that I believe in them both but I don't believe in the legislation of fasting, or reprimand and so�
Should this person be left alone to tamper with the religion of Allah in this way? No.

It is either he repents and returns to his senses and the group or not.
If he chooses not to repent then getting rid of him is a must and the group shouldn't be accused for seeking to secure its presence and guard its reality and prevent tampering with its entity.

If one person had doubts about something then those who have well established knowledge should work on removing his doubts. If he kept this doubt within himself then none would sense their or his danger.

But for one to have the idea that Man shouldn't be the leader of the house, or that he shouldn�t take twice as much from inheritance than women, or that usury should prevail and direct the whole economy, then he turns into a caller for these ideas and is trying to implement them with various ways. This is not be accepted by the name of Islam.

Trying to convince Islam into accepting this situation is silliness and asking it to provide the right of life and movement for those who try to destroy its structure and lower its flags is amazing.
There is no society in the whole world that would commit suicide in this ill manner and that�s why we don't see any peculiarity for such person to be asked to repent and if he refused he would get killed.

The Holy Quran didn't mention the boundary for defection openly� but in the Sunna came "Whoever changes his religion kill him" and "the blood of a Muslim should never be shed except in three matters: Adultery after marriage, Killing other souls that Allah prohibited without right, and he who leaves his religion and departs from the group."

The Quran has revealed that the Jews took from this freedom of belief as means to cut through Islam. They declared accepting Islam not to be accused of discrimination then they decided to renegade quickly as though they found something that turns them away from keeping hold of it, and the whole matter was tampering with religion and mocking its right.
No respectable principle trying to find a way for it in this life would accept that.

Despite that the Prophet accepted that anyone who hates Islam can leave out Madinah and go to Mecca and that was in the Hudaibiah Treaty.
We don't know of anybody defected from his religion or preferred association over Oneness or the desires of earth over the legislation of heaven.
Except what was told of Jablah ibn al-Aiham a prince who hated the idea that Islam would punish him for hitting a man from the common saying: how come? I'm a prince and he is from the common? But when Ameer Al-Muomineen (the prince of believers; the Muslim ruler) told him that Islam considers you as an equal to him, Jablah didn't like that and made a trick until he got out from the land of Islam and followed the Romans and declared Christianity.
This arrogant didn't do that because Trinity is more appealing to him than Oneness, rather it was a stupid arrogance that lost him his mind and drove him away from the true path.

It was told that he regretted that and said:

I became Christian because of a slap on the face
What harm could have been done if I were more patient
Arrogance and jealousy drove that to me,
It�s like replacing a good eye with a blind one,
I wish my mother never gave birth to me,
I wish I had returned to what Omar had said to me.

We would like to point here that a lot of forces are on the run now in order to demolish the Islamic entity, weaken it and try to raise doubts around all the branches of faith from top to bottom.
Muslims in their turn should defend their religion in all the legitimate ways available to calm down the worried, kill the traitors, and live in a climate of clarity and sincerity.

Stealing creeds and manners has become a profession for bandits of missionaries who detest Islam, its book and Prophet and would try their best efforts to raise the causes of riot in all corners in order to turn the whole society upside down.

It is the right of those responsible for this nation to defend its creeds and legislation against those who are waiting to attack and conspire against it.

We should hold tight to all the boundaries of Islam with the realization that mental and social health lies in establishing them as in the Hadeeth: "a Boundary to be carried out in earth with right is more blessing for it than to be rained for forty mornings"

Rain revives what has died from the earth while boundaries revive what has died from ethics and manners and would prevent plagues of corruption from over coming nations destroying their presents and futures.

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PUNISHMENT

The killer is killed and as long as he has deliberately chose to murder an innocent soul then he loosing his life for that is a just punishment.
Mercy has no place to be asked in this case.

A lot of voices are demanding for the cancellation of the death penalty and they view the criminal as a sick person who need medical treatment alleging that killing him would do us no good and won�t bring life back to those who were killed on his hands.

What�s weird is that these ignorant calls has found listening ears in Europe and America and the death penalty was replaced as a result for life in prison.

We in our turn meditate on the excuses they bring forth and we find nothing but nonsense in them. And that is because they say: Killing the killer won�t bring life back to the murdered, but we didn�t execute the killer for that impossible purpose. We execute him in order to preserve life in the whole community and to irritate anyone thinking of aggression knowing that he/she would lose his/her life once a they take another�s life.

Most of the criminals assault the right of life because they are unaware of the price they�ll pay inevitably for it. Had they known that they would be killed if they kill they would hesitate and stop their intentions.

Once the Arabs said: killing is more negating to killing�
And when the Holy Quran briefed the fruits of punishment in this phrase:
In the law of Equality (punishment) there is (saving of) Life to you� [2:189]
It was a personification of the stability that prevail in the nation and the security that preserve the bloods after applying Allah�s rule on every cruel aggressor.
The killer might be psychologically sick or not! Taking such assumption as an excuse to let him get away with what he has done is unacceptable!

The psychiatric and mental illnesses that appear and vanish in individual manners are many, and a lot of methods and various worships have been established to help those suffering from them to heal.
In addition, those who prefer life of honor and tranquility would not stretch their hands to harm and would not get involved in others� bloods, honors, or money�
Should we then apologize for some one who rapes because he has wild desires? Or for killer who kills because he has a twisted temper?
Why do we kill mad dogs and wild wolves then?
The killer gets killed and argument has no place to defend him.

Killers have been left in some countries as negligence to Allah�s rule and an elevation to the rule of idols, but what did these nations earn from that?
The spread of crime, the prevalence of chaos and the panic of thousands from being harmed whether in their roads or in their homes!
Is it this that is required from having compassion towards criminals and describing them as sick people with psychological diversions?

Allah almighty has made assault on one human being as a an underestimating to all humans right of life:
If anyone slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people�[5:32]

And this saving might be by rescuing one from drowning, or by protecting an oppressed from an oppressor, or by establishing the right of life for the community by applying death penalty on a murderer.
Killing him would save the lives of others that were to get killed over his hands if he were free.

Punishment is an ancient legislation in the souls, senses, and limbs:
We ordained therein for them: "Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal." But if anyone remits the retaliation by way of charity�[5:45]

And charity here is for one to relinquish his legislated right. It is allowed for those who are guardians of the blood to give up on their rights in return for an amount of money they agree upon or by seeking nearness to Allah by pardoning.
In the Hadeeth, � Allah would reward those who pardon others with more glory.� And in this case the killer would be spared from death penalty but the government still has the right to punish those who disrupt security of the society with what it sees from deterring punishments.

Some might ask, why does penalty fall when the guardians of the blood pardon? The answer is, the circumstances that accompany crimes are many, and a lot people are not harmed by the physical punishment as much as what ethical punishment leaves deep scares in them.
If a strong aggressor hit them they wouldn�t grief much for the physical harm they got rather they would suffer greatly for the idea that others are capable on them and that they became weak because of the assault others done to them.
All of these feelings are washed away once they obtain the right of giving life or taking it away from those who harmed them. And once people come to them asking for pardoning and hoping that they would have the upper hand, they become fulfilled and healed.
Keeping in mind that the end of the individual right doesn�t end the right of the community as we mentioned.

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