Punishments

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As I posted last week, non-Muslim countries might go all the way to banning some Islamic traditions because they are associated with Sharia law or perceived as denigrating, and some of these traditions are completely misunderstood. However, as much as Muslims believe that Sharia law is a divine revelation and Sharia law differs in severity even between Islamic countries, in this post I will explore the relationship between Sharia law and radical punishments such as arm amputation or stoning a person to death (O'Conell).

Depending on the severity of their violation a Muslim could only be fined by the court or he could even be executed; a lot of Islamic countries don't have a proper judicial system and base off their verdicts on a simple assumption (O'Conell). I think it's weird that these barbaric punishments are still practiced in some countries even after all these declarations of human rights have been established in most parts of the world. The idea of having someone beheaded, even if that someone is a murderer, is primitive, especially when a lot of the reasons for which people are executed are pretty irrational; and even some of the ways in which they are executed are very torturous. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries in which Sharia law is very radically practiced, people are publicly beheaded for committing crimes like murder or rape and when thieves are caught their hand is cut off (O'Conell).

Sharia law has a lot of specific punishments that concern a woman's conduct. For example, a woman can get punished for showing a bit too much of her face or body. Another group that is severely castigated by Sharia law are homosexuals, if someone is caught or even suspected of being homosexual they are executed (O'Conell).

One of the things I find most amusing about the practice of Sharia law is that some of the punishments they carry out are so barbaric that they demean the actual status of both the person that is being castigated as well as the people punishing this person, how can they even be considered humans after they perform these actions? When talking about the Muslim veils last week I somewhat concluded that a woman that actually wants to wear a veil because it is part of her cultural heritage shouldn't be bothered by the government, but when this conclusion is applied to the situation of punishments its illogical... what if they consider this forms of punishment their cultural heritage or that this punishments are actually imposed by God and they cannot be changed at all? Both culture and religion are very complex and controversial concepts to mess with, and a change of culture is much more difficult than any other kind of change. I believe that we can only aim at gradually reducing the radical and extreme nature of these punishments, the only other option would be to force the countries to abandon these practices, but this would probably lead to greater political problems, maybe even a World War, and we don't want that... do we?

Works Cited
O'Connell, Kelly. "Crime & Punishment in Islamic Law." Canada Free Press. 26 Sept. 2010. Web. 1 Sept. 2011. <http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/28083>.