Help on Quranic verse 2:178

[mclinkin94]

Quran 2:178 O you who have believed, prescribed for you is legal retribution for those murdered - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, and the female for the female. But whoever overlooks from his brother anything, then there should be a suitable follow-up and payment to him with good conduct. This is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy. But whoever transgresses after that will have a painful punishment.

The objection is that it is not moral to allow an innocent slave or female to die just because you killed a slave/female.

Can I get an explanation?

[FARHAN_UDDIN]

Assalamualykum.

 Please visit the following link:

 http://www.answering-christianity.com/laws_of_murder.htm

[mclinkin94]

Thank you brother Farhan, the article doesn't directly answer the question because it is mostly focused on other things as well (besides the moral aspect).


I found this on Yahoo answers, I thought it would be rather helpful:

The problem is UNDERSTANDING the verse:

In actual the verse is DISCOURAGING capital punishment.

The Torah came with laws of equivalence in the sense:   An eye for eye, a hand for hand, an equal injury for an injury.

The Quran has a different law code: It DISCOURAGES capital punishment, but does NOT abolish it.

[2:178]
O you who believe, equivalence is the law decreed for you when dealing with murder - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. If one is pardoned by the victim's kin, an appreciative response is in order, and an equitable compensation shall be paid. This is an alleviation from your Lord and mercy. Anyone who transgresses beyond this incurs a painful retribution.

[2:179]
Equivalence is a life saving law for you, O you who possess intelligence, that you may be righteous.

The objective is to discourage capital punishment.

So IF the heir of the victim insist on capital punishment, then one has to see, if there is equivalence in the matter i.e. the guilty and the victim have to be of the same category i.e. free would be punished if the victim was also free. The guilty slave will be executed ONLY if the victim was also a slave. The guilty woman would be executed ONLY if the victim was also a woman. Else !!! the heir of the victim will HAVE TO accept a compensation, instead.

It is IMPERATIVE to understand AND FAIRLY LOGICAL to understand that you CANNOT punish Paul in place of Peter. This is MADNESS.
And this is a totally ABSURD explanation of idiot Muslims that the Quran in any way is trying to teach us basics in this regard. It is total madness.

Here is a good example that should give the shut up call to such idiots: As this is BASIC justice.

[12:78]
They said, "O you noble one, he has a father who is elderly; would you take one of us in his place? We see that you are a kind man."

[12:79]
He said, "GOD forbid that we should take other than the one in whose possession we found our goods. Otherwise, we would be unjust."

[Sama]

salam alaikum

http://www.classicalislamgroup.com/index.php?view=tafseer/s2-v178to179-3
http://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem.php?sura=2&verse=177&to=182

[FARHAN_UDDIN]

ASSALAMUALYKUM.


 Brother, I sent brother Bassam Zawadi your question. Below is his reply:


 (On the authority of Ibn Abi Hatim, Ibn Kathir has reported that just before the advent of Islam, war broke out between two tribes. Many men and women, free and slaves, belonging to both, were killed. Their case was still undecided when the Islam period set in and the two tribes entered the fold of Islam. Now that they were Muslim, they started talking about retaliation for those killed on each side. One of the tribes which was more powerful insisted that they would not agree on anything less than a free man for their slave and a man for their woman be killed from the other side.

It was to refute this barbaric demand on their part that this verse was revealed. By saying 'free man for a free man, slave for a slave and female for a female' it is intended to negate their absurd demand that a free man for a salve and man for a woman should be killed in retaliation, even though he may not be the killer. The just law that Islam enforces was that the killer is the one who has to be killed in Qisas. If a woman is the killed why should an innocent man be killed in retaliation? Similar if the killer is a slave there is no sense retaliation against an innocent free man. This is an injustice which can never be tolerated in Islam.

This verse meaning nothing but what has been stated earlier, and we repeat, that one who has killed will  the one to be killed in Qisas. It is not permissible to kill an innocent man or someone free for a killer, woman or slave. Let us hasten to clarify that the verse does not mean that Qisa will not be taken from a man who kills a woman or from a free man who kills a slave. In the very beginning of the word كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْقِصَاصُ فِي الْقَتْلَى  "Qisas has been enjoined upon you in case of those murdered"(2:178) are clear proof of this universality of application. There are other verses where this aspect has been stated more explicitly, for instance in النَّفْسَ بِالنَّفْسِ "A life for life." (5:45)

In short choice of words is related to the context of revelation. This is one of the those verses that are death-pills for hadith rejecters or those who try to underline the context of revelation.)