In answer to the video "The Most Violent and Awkward Quran Verse"
The Quran appeals to the believers' taqwa/God-consciousness in maintaining indiscriminate justice
"though it may be against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives"or even
"against a hated people" 5:2"and let not hatred of a people..incite you to exceed the limits, and help one another in goodness and piety, and do not help one another in sin and aggression".These verses came down at a time where Muslims were living in Medina under the constant threat of war, in an unceasing atmosphere of plotting and suspicions between all parties, including the Jews.
Yet the Quran tells the Muslims not to give up justice for scapegoating, and baseless stereotypes. There are many examples to corroborate from the prophet's life and early companions. For instance the prophet once ruled in favor of a Jew to whom a companion owed money, on the Jew's own terms despite having full authority to give a more lenient ruling in favor of his close companion. The disregard for justice, or the abuse of power from a dominant position towards any human being was an attitude severely reprimanded by the prophet to the point he said
"If anyone wrongs a person protected by a covenant, violates his rights, burdens him with more work than he is able to do, or takes something from him without his consent, then I will plead for him on the Day of Resurrection".
Once a case of theft was brought before him by a close companion for a lenient verdict
"When Usama spoke to Allah's Messenger about that matter, Allah's Messenger said, "Do you intercede (with me) to violate one of the legal punishment of Allah?" Then he got up and addressed the people, saying, "O people! The nations before you went astray because if a noble person committed theft, they used to leave him, but if a weak person among them committed theft, they used to inflict the legal punishment on him. By Allah, if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad committed theft, Muhammad will cut off her hand".
Rabbinic conjecture on the other hand has discriminated between Jews and non-Jews, in the value of a life as well as in moral obligations. In that particular issue of value of a human life, they modified the universality of the principle to make it apply solely to a Jewish soul, that consequently takes on a more sacred character
"whosoever destroys a single soul of Israel, Scripture imputes [guilt] to him as though he had destroyed a complete world; and whosoever preserves a single soul of Israel, Scripture ascribes [merit] to him as though he had preserved a complete world".The Quran further adds a clause of self-defence and application of justice to the moral principle, a clause which is present in the law of and teachings of every prophet of God
"unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land".The earliest Muslim leaders and scholars thus understood the verse as having an indiscriminate application. For example the caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz is reported to have left a Muslim murderer's life in the hands of the non-Muslim victim's family. Before him, the caliph Umar ibn al Khattab warned that
"if one of you were to give a gesture of safety to an idolater and he came trusting you and you killed him, then I would execute you for it".When the prophet reportedly
"judged that a believer should not be killed for killing a disbeliever"it isnt speaking in an unrestricted sense, but as agreed by many hadith scholars, and schools of law, in the case a Muslim soldier independently kills the soldiers of a hostile army in a declared war. This hadith, as a side note, is a classical case of the prophet speaking in an unspecified context, answering/reacting to an unknown question/situation/remark and thus the only way for someone to ascertain the meaning of the report is to take into consideration the whole corpus of hadith and historical records, establishing a pattern of actions from the noble prophet, as well as the overarching Quran commands, to arrive at the correct interpretation. Based on that holistic approach, the classical schools of law derived different conclusions; while most Hanafi jurists argued that qisas applies between 2 individuals regardless of status (slave/free person) or religion, Malikis or Hanbalis only validate qisas between Muslims.
This however did not, and never meant that a crime committed against someone not covered by qisas, implied that the crime would remain without consequences, whether worldly through the justice system, or before God Who sanctified the soul of every innocent human being, indiscriminately 5:32. A hadith sometimes cited to demonstrate discrimination in qisas among Muslims themselves on the basis of social status, is the one where Zinba'/Zanba Abi Rawh found his servant boy with his own servant girl
"so he became jealous of him, and cut off his penis".
In answer, the prophet freed the slave from his owner, writing a testimony that he shall be financially supported by the state for as long as he lived. Qisas here didnt apply as the slave committed a wrong against his guardian and was entitled to punishment, but not in the manner and harshness his guardian inflicted on him. We thus see that in an incident which isnt exactly adapted to a qisas situation, because the one of lesser status had committed a crime against the free person and was thus deserving of retaliation, the prophet still made the free person bear the consequences for his harshness, in addition making the state itself responsible for the slave. One can only wonder then, what would have been the prophet's reaction in an actual situation of qisas, ie where the slave committed no crime whatsoever and was unjustly harmed in the same manner by a free person? The prophet and the Quran's positions as regards the just and kind treatment of slaves are well known
"The Prophet Said: If anyone kills his slave, we shall kill him, and if anyone cuts off the nose of his slave, we shall cut off his nose" (graded unreliable by al-Albani although at-Tirmidhi and al-Hakim disagree by validating it).
The same al-Hasan who transmitted the hadith later became forgetful according to the scholars, saying that "A free man should not be subjected to retaliation in return for a slave". The retaliation spoken of here being murder. It is to be noted that the jurists werent making their legal deductions in a vacuum. The society of the time was patriarchal, with the head of the household responsible for maintaining the direct and extended family, as well as possibly one or more servants under his care. So in terms of social repercussions, the death of the free had far more negative implications than the slave. It would lead to more harm in the long run, leaving the remaining household under the responsibility of the state. That is why the jurists who discriminated in qisas applied the same reasoning to dhimmis (non-Muslims citizen of the Islamic state) and their own slaves. It is to avoid reaching that difficult situation that while discussing the law of qisas even between people in general, the Quran favours pardon and reconciliation, while never taking away the victim's right to resort to equal retribution. In modern civil suits for homicide, compensation is most often calculated based upon the expected income that is now lost. Just as the Muslim jurists did when applying qisas, according to the economic realities of the time. The same considerations are taken into account in the laws of inheritance.
When Al-Mughirah murdered and took the wealth of idolaters before converting to Islam and pledging allegiance to the prophet, the latter accepted his pledge but rejected his wealth as unlawfully acquired, regardless of the victim's religion
"As for your Islam, we have accepted it. As for the property, it is the wealth of treachery and we have no need for it".The passage 5:27-32 is a direct address to the Bani Israel of the prophet Muhammad's time who, like their forefathers to whom the ordinance was forcefully "written upon" because of their complete disregard for the sanctity of human life to the point they even murdered the prophets sent to them, planned time after time to kill their innocent Ishmaelite brother out of pure jealousy that God had now raised a prophet outside of their line. They subconsciously know about their unworthiness, which is time and again pointed in their own books. Like Cain, they could not see that all this, their removal as being the torch bearers of truth in favor of a new nation, was due to their persistence in transgression and lack of God-consciousness, as their own history bears testimony to.
The passage is meant at opening their eyes to their spiritual condition, and warning them of the severity of the sin they were planning on committing and how remorseful and helpless they would then become.
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