Previously I discussed stoning in Judaism as an example of ethical progress within religion. Now, a very brief look at Islam. I was surprised: Islamic stoning applies only to adultery. (In the Bible there are dozens of capital crimes.) The 2 other capital crimes I found: murder (at the victim’s family’s demand) and apostasy. Most would think the list in Islam is much larger, so it was actually progressive for its time. Furthermore the procedure is quite strict, requiring 4 witnesses & many other rules for conviction.
But there’s a huge difference between law and reality & Mohammed was brutal beyond what the Koran implies. A man confessed to adultery and Mohammed thought he was insane to do so. He asked the man “are you insane?” and on hearing “no” stoned this man, who was obviously not very sane at all [Bukhari 7:63:196]. A great example of how religious proponents will often point out “liberal” laws (to show how progressive their religion is), but ignore that their application is much harsher.
There are parallels with Judaism. Although it probably has a stricter conviction standard than Islam, there’s still plenty of extra-judicial execution. A man was once executed for riding a horse on Shabbat [Yev 90b], though this isn’t a capital crime (the excuse given is that Sabbath-breaking was common then and a message needed to be sent). And despite the “liberal” nature of Jewish criminal law, one who intentionally breaks a negative commandment 3 times is killed extra-judicially in a rather unpleasant way [Sanhedrin 9:4].
The existence of extra-judicial killings are an argument against apologists. No matter how much liberalism there may be in a religion, as long as there are aspects that CAN be interpreted brutally, they WILL be by some wingnuts. I think that’s the main reason there are Islamic but not Jewish stonings. 13M Jews, 1B+ Muslims. Assuming the same rate of wingnuttery, Muslims will have 77 times the nuts: enough to set up entire wingnut states that stone left and right.
A final note: from another view Mohammed was backward even for his day. He ordered the stoning of a Jewish couple even though by then the Jewish community was anti-death penalty. The tragedy is of Shakespearean proportions:
A Jew and a Jewess were brought to Allah’s Apostle on a charge of committing illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet asked them. “What is the legal punishment in your Torah?” They replied, “Our priests have innovated the punishment of blackening the faces with charcoal.” Abdullah bin Salam said, “O Allah’s Apostle, tell them to bring the Torah.” The Torah was brought, and then one of the Jews put his hand over the Divine Verse of the Stoning and started reading what preceded and what followed it. Ibn Salam said, “Lift up your hand.” Behold! The Divine Verse of the Stoning was under his hand. So Allah’s Apostle ordered that the 2 be stoned to death, and so they were stoned. Ibn ‘Umar added: So both of them were stoned at the Balat and I saw the Jew sheltering the Jewess [from the stones]. [Bukhari 8:82:809, abridged]
10 comments ↓
In Deuteronomy (21:18,19,20,21), we read that if one’s son is rebellious and does not comply to the warnings of his parents then he should be stoned to death.
The question I ask is this:
Why do religious texts remain unaltered if their teachings are considered dangerous (stoning, hanging) or obsolete (eating certain foods)? Every Jew and Christian, despite the fact they do not (hopefully) still practice stoning, will tell you that the Torah (almost identical to the so-called Old Testament) shall remain unaltered. Why? How can they explain the numerous stupidities, brutalities, nonsense written in it?
Hi Takis, thanks for commenting. As per my stoning in Judaism post, the way Judaism got around the stoning laws is effectively legislating them out of existence.
The rebellious son (Deut 21) is a special case in Judaism, the Talmud devotes an entire chapter to discussing the laws of the rebellious son, restricting the scope of the law so that it’s for all practical purposes impossible to execute anyone under the law. (Example: from memory to be eligible for the death penalty he must consume outside his father’s property a certain quantity of meat and wine with money stolen from his father). It even goes beyond that: one of the rabbis says there never was a [person executed for being a] rebellious son, it was just a law given by God for the sake of Torah learning.
So I guess the ways religions have dealt with such passages are:
- delay moral development (for those who still execute people) or
- obfuscate or restrict the law’s application or
- interpret the entire thing as a metaphor or as an intellectual exercise only
[This comment cross-posted at your site and mine]
Michael, thank you for your comment and explanatory remarks. I can certainly appreciate the fact that judaism (and christianity) has pushed these brutalities away by means of deflection, obfuscation etc. (In theory, at least, but not in practice: whereas a christian, like George Bush, will not conduct wars or order an execution in the name of Deuteronomy, he does so through his self-righteous ways of acting.)
What you say only confirms my point: that religion cannot deal with a problem like science does. Religion accepts things at face value and, for hundreds/thousands of years, it has to strive to correct blatant falsities, immoralities, etc, contained in its sacred texts; not by deleting them, but by re-interpreting them, by diffusing their meaning. I don’t think (and I think you don’t either) this is acceptable or rational.
[cross-posted as well
]
I do agree that rationalising brutality away is only rational given the assumption that your scripture IS truth (and since there’s no reason for the assumption it’s not rational).
1 point I should have made in the post is that Islam rationalises it away too — I linked to Wikipedia articles of Islamic countries where you can get stoned but this is a minority. Most countries with a majority Muslim population do NOT follow the sharia law (especially in terms of an Islamic death penalty) — they have some sort of integration of a secular system with a religious one (different depending on the country). So of the Abrahamic faiths, 3 out of 3 employ rationalisation for moral progress.
As for GWB, I’m reluctant to try psychoanalyse leaders. A speculation on my part is that whatever role Christianity played in his war decisions it was more likely Revelations and its description of end times rather than Deutoronomy or any latent desire to impose some sort of death penalty on Saddam & co for breaking Biblical law.
Dear ,Brother
the emobreoilded allegation by some ignorants to Islam Quran that ; the stoning the adoltery (Rajum Alzani wa l Zaniyah)in fact these brutial canons do only apply in the jewish and christians manuscripts the Turah & the Gospel ,Providentialy We Muslims simply dont have these canon or what so ever Quranic verses revelation stating to stoning the adoltery, even there is no any Quranic verse stating that our beloved compassionat pious Prophet Moahmed has ever ordered to stone someone to death, we all are aware this is a canon must emerged from the Quranic law, according the Quran , the only canonical verses the issues of the adoltery is (Q, 24.1-4) the woman and man guilty of adultery falog each of them a hundered stripes without any compassion in their case matter prescriped by Allah faith, if you truly believe in Allah and the last day and let some of the believers to witness their punishment . plus according to the Sunnah canon its very strict and almost impossible to prove that, two people are commited adultery by a third part(Q.24-4) so the case dissmiss, dont tell me about the Hadith bring me a prove from the Quran I am sure thats so-called hadith of the jewish Woman been stone to death its completly false Hadith, come on Muslims wake up how come on earth our beloved pious Prophet have his own Canon proceed in a deferent Jewish canons, we all know that the final definitive pious prophet Mohamed peace be upon him, canonical oreders abrogated all the pious prophets that been send before him.
peace & love regards to all
Abdulla Mahir .
The last comment provides, quite eloquently, a rational and logical explanation of stoning. I’m afraid that none of us know the scriptures well, neither can we ever know them, for they are, as witnessed from the above, written in arabic. I’m afraid we may have missed several important points, precisely those that have been outlined above for our benefit. In view of this, you may wish to consider rewriting your post.
Abdulla — I did not mean that the Quran itself prescribes stoning — I’ll make an edit.
“dont tell me about the Hadith bring me a prove from the Quran” — if you can convince the hundreds of millions of your fellow Muslims to do this and all stonings stop then I’ll be the first to congratulate you.
Takis — I don’t think we missed anything, other than pointing out that this isn’t explicit in the Quran. These hadith and legal principles do exist and are followed by some. The fact that people like Adbulla insist on a different interpretation does not change reality.
From http://www.merriam-webster.com:
sar·cas·tic
\sär-ˈkas-tik\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1695
1 : having the character of sarcasm
2 : given to the use of sarcasm : caustic
— sar·cas·ti·cal·ly
sarcastically \-ti-k(ə-)lē\
adverb
synonyms: sarcastic , satiric , ironic , sardonic mean marked by bitterness and a power or will to cut or sting. sarcastic implies an intentional inflicting of pain by deriding, taunting, or ridiculing . satiric implies that the intent of the ridiculing is censure and reprobation . ironic implies an attempt to be amusing or provocative by saying usually the opposite of what is meant . sardonic implies scorn, mockery, or derision that is manifested by either verbal or facial expression .
I just had a sarcastic comment of mine taken seriously on another post! It was a long day and your wording was a bit too mild which I think threw me off (oops!)
Then again Poe’s Law can make it very hard to pass of mockery of religion as sarcasm (at least on the net)…:)
Hi Michael,
Mr Abdulla reminds me of verse 38 of the Tao Te Ching:
The highest good is not to seek to do good,
but to allow yourself to become it.
The ordinary person seeks to do good things,
and finds that they cannot do them continually.
The Master does not force virtue on others,
thus she is able to accomplish her task.
The ordinary person who uses force,
will find that they accomplish nothing.
The kind person acts from the heart,
and accomplishes a multitude of things.
The righteous person acts out of pity,
yet leaves many things undone.
The moral person will act out of duty,
and when no one will respond
will roll up his sleeves and uses force.
My natural tendency is not to use mild language, but what can I do with all the moral people out there who might misinterpret my intentions? I’m afraid they may spread emobreoilded [sic] allegations about me and, sooner or later actually falog [sic] me. And, as we know, falogging [sic] is not very pleasant.
Incidentally, thanks for referring to Poe’s Law. I was not aware of it. I googled it and here is, e.g., what I found:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Poe's+Law
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