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Author Topic: Blood Money
Laura
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Just curious what others think about this.

Could you accept something like this?

Maybe it would help ease the burden/financial cost of another family member who is ill, put children through college, make your life a little easier.? [Confused]

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Ayisha
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It is in Quran and I think I would rather accept blood money than have another person die.

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If you don't learn from your mistakes, there's no sense making them.

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anthropos
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what is blood money?
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Exiiled
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quote:
Originally posted by anthropos:
what is blood money?

It's basically paying the family of victim to be pardoned. Basically from accidental death, and other cases where the death wasn't in cold blooded murder.

They had a case several years back in Marina, Egypt when a speed boat driven by a son of a wealthy Egyptian hit and killed someone swimming in the water.


It's a very humane way to resolve such matters, and as Ayisha pointed out one life is lost, better to end it there then to ruin another life.

Keep in mind the blood money can be accepted in which a pardon is granted, but sometimes it is declined, in which the case is prosecuted in a court of law.

A similar outcome existed in the US few years ago. A famous football player (Donte stallworth) killed a pedestrian in Florida, while driving drunk. He settled with the family of the deceased for an undisclosed amount of money. The D.A took that into consideration and sentenced Stallworth a month in jail, and 2 years of house arrest. He could have went to prison for a very long time. It's basically the same thing, the main difference in Islamic Law the family of the victim has the final say. A judge can not supersede their decision.

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vwvwv
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quote:
Originally posted by anthropos:
what is blood money?

Blood money means if you have money you can get away with murder. The idea of blood money originates from the Quran, 2.178:

"O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female."

The worst part of the blood money concept: The compensation to be paid is not the same for all people.

The only full members of the Islamic community are Muslim men. All others have fewer rights, due to their religion, sex or slave status. The rates for blood money mirror this apartheid system.

The Wall Street Journal published the concept of blood money in Saudi Arabia. If a person has been killed or caused to die by another, the latter has to pay blood money or compensation, as follow.
100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
50,000 riyals if a Christian man
25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman
According to this hierarchy, a Muslim man's life is worth 33 times that of a Hindu woman. This hierarchy is based on the Islamic definition of human rights and is rooted in the Quran and Sharia (Islamic law).

What’s even worse is that the life of an ex-Muslim is worth nothing at all. He is a traitor and can be killed with impunity:

Muhammad is reported to have said: "The blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah is not lawful to shed unless he be one of three: a married adulterer, someone killed in retaliation for killing another, or someone who abandons his religion and the Muslim community.'' There is no blood money for killing an apostate.

This kind of thinking is alien to Western notions of individual freedom and equality before the law.

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metinoot
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I have a question.

How is "blood money" any different than suing a doctor after death for malpractice?

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vwvwv
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A doctor will lose his license if found guilty. It's not the same.

If people commit crime and get away with it they will continue to commit offences.

Shahid Saeed explains: Some laws can be murder

If honour killings, broad daylight murders and killing sprees between families do not pose a threat to society, then perhaps nothing does since only a handful of such cases result in sentences after compromises

After the violent mob lynching in Sialkot, much has been written on inherent violence in our society, breakdown of the rule of law, police and judicial corruption and acceptance of mob justice. However, one factor that remains to be highlighted is how the introduction of qisas and diyat laws in 1990 led to a complete obliteration of criminal justice. Without going into the ideological, religious and sectarian debates that stem from the issue, I would like to highlight problems associated with this legislation. Statistics and facts have been taken from The Application of Islamic Criminal Law in Pakistan by Tahir Wasti. Introduced purely out of political expediency by an unrepresentative interim government to please a court headed by a religious man, and to seek a positive judgment in the dismissal of the Benazir government by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, it has since paralysed the criminal justice system.

While murder is still treated as an offence against the public and the state initiates prosecution against alleged culprits, Islamic criminal law has been understood to treat murder as a civil offence where the aggrieved party (legal heirs of the deceased) alone can bring forward the case or forgive on their own without bringing it in front of a judge. The social contract that has evolved in Pakistan requires the state to treat murder not as a private wrong but a criminal offence against the public.

Based on research in 10 districts in Punjab regarding the Multan Bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC), Federal Shariat Court (FSC) and Supreme Court (SC), between 1981 and 2000, the murder rate rose at an average of 6.5 per 100,000 per annum. It has increased since the qisas and diyat laws were introduced. The percentage of cases cancelled by the police on their own without sending a chalaan to the court has doubled and stood at 11 percent in 2000. Conviction rates at the trial stage have steadily decreased and stood at an abysmal 12 percent in 2000 while compromise rates increased to 29 percent. This means that one out of every three murderers walks free after striking a deal. The total conviction rate in the Multan Bench of the LHC fell from 51 percent in the 1980s to 33 percent in the next decade. At the same time, the acquittal rate in the SC increased from 28 percent to 67 percent while the conviction rate dropped from 79 percent in 1984 to 35 percent in 2000. No person has ever been convicted of murder under qisas.

Here are some notable cases of murderers going scot-free. In PLD 1992 Pesh 187, one Ishtiaq murdered his sister in cold blood to obtain her real estate property. The compromise between him, his parents and siblings was accepted and he went free. In 1993 PCrLJ 1795, one Hanif murdered his wife’s sister since he thought that she was going to marry a man he wished his sister to marry. Hanif went scot-free after his wife and her parents forgave him. Husbands guilty of murdering their wives are let go since the court views that minors would be deprived of having a father. In 1997 PCrLJ 247, one Mansoor Ali broke into the house of his uncle to wipe out his family so he could become the heir to his wealth. He shot dead five family members while two others were injured. He was acquitted after a compromise deed was produced before the court signed by the heir who had, by that time, lost her sanity. The case of Samia Sarwar, belonging to an urban elite educated family tells us how parents systematically murdered their own daughter in the name of ‘honour’ for wishing to divorce her husband. Parents and siblings, already having lost a family member, do not wish to be separated from one another. This poses the question of whether such compromises should be allowed since it sends a clear message that honour killings and killings within the family are justified since the convict goes scot-free without any social stigma or serving a criminal sentence.

The author rightly notes: “The present rationale of the Pakistani qisas and diyat laws effectively translates into the government abdicating its responsibility to punish murderers” and “an increasing number of people (are) getting away with murder”. The author notes that compromise was not a new phenomenon and was commonplace in the country before 1990 when it was essentially illegal and had no legal value.

Razinamas are controlled demolitions of the system of criminal justice. Murderers walking away scot-free are a threat to society. It is beside the point that compromises are often produced by abducting and harassing family members, using coercion, and girls are exchanged in badl-i-sulh (mutually agreed compensation) as nothing but objects owned by people. The concept of fasad fil arz (corruption on earth) alone cannot fulfil the requirements of giving murderers due sentences for their heinous crimes since in most interpretations it is only applicable where the offender has a record of criminal behaviour. What the court laid down in Dawar vs the State (1991 MLD 1864) as “an offence ... (that) pose(s) a threat to collective peace and tranquillity” has formally translated into a reality where it seems most murders do not pose a threat to society. If honour killings, broad daylight murders and killing sprees between families do not pose a threat to the peace of society, then perhaps nothing does since only a handful of such cases result in sentences after compromises.

The basic problem with theocracy as an ideology and laws promulgated in the name of religion remains that the doors of any subsequent change are closed forever. Diyat in the form of a razinama is elitist as it allows a financially well off person to get away with murder (provided the wali agrees). It is an injustice that rich people have the unfair and unjust advantage of offering a large amount of money to financially poor heirs as it allows the former to entice the latter with money. A justice system biased towards the elite cannot work.

Evolution in social constraints and norms since the time when Islamic jurists laid down the basis of criminal justice aside, the nature of compromise deeds has led to a culture where murder is nearly condoned and justified since monetary compensation can wash murder clean. The basics of criminal law are indeed deterrence, incapacitation, retribution and rehabilitation. In the present case with convicts going scot-free due to razinamas, without any stigma attached to their character, neither one of the four basics of criminal justice are fulfilled. The breakdown of criminal justice is nothing but the by-product of such legislation.

The writer is a student of engineering, interested in history and political science. He can be reached at shahid@live.com.pk

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Questionmarks
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It's true: only people who have money are able to pay óff their guilt. We have had something similar in the catholic church during the middelages, and the crusaders used it often: in exchange for an amount of money they recieved a written statement signed by a representative of the Vatican, that this particular person has payed for his sins. It was always a man, women weren't able to pay it off. ( Or perhaps they didn't commit so much sins that could have been payed off)
I don't know if there was an official pricelist, but it could have been so: By doing confesses in the church, people had to do something in exchange for their sins: praying. The more they had done wrong, the more prayers they had to say.
Anyway, in Western view bloodmoney is a backward custom, and they consider it as morally wrong that only people with money are able to pay for the sins they have committed.
By the way, I think there is a habit in Egypt which is going into the same direction: a family has to pay responsebility to another family if a member has done something wrong. By example: If a man has loaned money and he doesn't pay back, the family can be asked to pay back, or to work for it in exchange.

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“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

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vwvwv
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayisha:
It is in Quran and I think I would rather accept blood money than have another person die.

This a false dilemma if you ask me.

Why should you have another person die in the first place?

Why not just imprison the criminal, AND make him compensate his victim financially?

That way everybody is happy:

- The criminal can continue to live, in prison he is given plenty of time to repent and rethink his actions.

- Society is protected from a dangerous individual, the criminal is prevented from harming other people.

- By sparing the criminal's life, society is sending a message that killing is wrong.

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