by Alyaa El-Kafrawy

Created on: September 29, 2009   Last Updated: October 02, 2009

Just or harsh?

Islam is a Religion of Peace and Justice. It's a religion that cherishes good manners and rejects crime.

I believe that the Islamic Rules and punishments are not made by man. They are made by the CREATOR of man. And based on that believe I believe that they are Just.

We all agree that the reason of punishment is that the crime never happen. So punishment is really working on the soul of human beings. It's based on psychology! You either put a punishment to make a person fear doing the act for his fear of the punishment or maybe to purify him if the act is already done, and on the other hand, you put rewards tempting enough to make him follow a certain act.

Now if you bought a device and the device broke or malfunctioned for whatever reason what would you do to fix it ? you'll either consult the manual or call a technician and if you are smart enough you might try and fix it yourself, right?

What if you knew who made the device? Won't he be the most capable person of fixing it? After all he is the one who made it !

Now let's apply this example on our topic of discussion. Human nature is complicated and humans are complicated creatures that are hard to deal with their internal psychology , so who is the best to fix them and to guide them other than their creator Allah "GOD"?! Simply no one. So when the punishment is tough be sure it's because it's needed to be tough in this situation. And when the punishment is easy be sure that toughness is not needed in this situation.

That's in addition to the fact that being tough sometimes or harsh doesn't by any mean imply injustice! If a man accidentally knocked you down on the street and said he was sorry and you beat him until he bleeds, that's harsh and injustice. But If a man tried to kill your child and you did the same you won't be blamed. In fact you won't be blamed if you did more than that! It's all a matter of relativity you know.

What I am trying to say is Islamic punishments vary from being harsh to mild to soft if you are going to look at the punishment alone, but when compared with the crime it's always JUST.

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