Law of equality in Islam? Someone kills on purpose - the family gets ramsom money & He walks free! Is this fair? [Answer - Read more..]
Salam alaykum - Great question
"If someone intentionally kills another person - and the family forgives this person and asks for a ransome instead of taking his life, will the guilty person be forgiven and released against society?
And if, "Yes" then how would this be fair?"
Answer: No. It would not be fair - and it is not true of Islam anyway.
A family only has the right for this option in the event of killing without intent to kill. This is called "manslaughter" in English and does not equate to "homicide" or "murder".
This is mentioned in Quran with regard to satisfying the situation that used to arise from fueding amongst the tribes and not for intentional murder of someone. A good example of this was the "Feud of the Camel" - prior to the advent of Islam, there was a camel race after which a boy threw a rock at the winning camel and killed it out of anger for having lost the race. The owners of the camel then killed the boy and then his family started to take revenge against those people and they in turn took more revenge against them and so on and so forth. This feud raged on for forty years. According to Islamic Law, the boy's family would have to pay a ransom for the animal that was slain and that would be the end of it.
Regarding the killing of an individual that does not involve intentional murder, such as a vehicle accident, or other type of accidental death, or even a fight whereby one of them dies, as long as it was not an obvious murder case, this would be considered as manslaughter and treated as such.
In some countries today, considered to be most sophisticated, we find people who did not actually intend to kill someone, yet they did have intention to harm them, being treated in the same category as murders and doing time in prison for many years. Islam is providing a solution for the families and for the society at large, by having the one family pay an agreed upon amount of money to help support the survivors of the deceased and then the person would move away from that community. This relieves the families on both sides and provides for a way to keep eveyone productive in society and not burden the tax payers with thousands of dollars a month to incarcerate one member of a family while spending thousands of more dollars to support his family through welfare. Keep in mind, this is only for those cases where intended murder is not the subject.
The Islamic State (just like the USA) has full charge over murders and deals with it according to Shariah (Islamic Law).
Thanks again for a good question. Be sure to visit our main site: www.shareislam.com And for more details on this topic: www.SearchforIslam.com
