When a man is jailed for life, a man like some mass murderer or a Nazi war criminal like Rudolf Helsing, then isn’t that slightly harsh on the man? I mean, shouldn’t he be put to death instead? Would that be a better solution? Because to be shut up in jail all your life, the rest of your life. If somebody is a mass murderer, as you said, no punishment is enough for him. Because he has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, and in exchange he has to offer only his life.
If somebody is a mass torturer, he would be torturing many life hours of human beings. Yet even if he is tortured throughout his life, he has only to offer one life hour of one man. So how can you take your revenge here on earth? The only revenge lies in the hereafter. Otherwise it’s impossible to bring to loose all the criminals and to dispense justice to them properly. So if there was a man in Islam who was that kind of person, would he be put to death or jailed?
In fact, I answered that question, I know what you mean. But whether he is put to prison to elongate his torture, or put to death, that is insignificant as compared to the crime he has committed. But Islam believes in capital punishment. Also Islam believes in exceptions. And the right to forgive a murderer and turn his capital punishment to a lesser punishment, or to total forgiveness, is the right of the next of kin of the person murdered. It is not the right of the third person judged.
So Islamic principles are based on human psychology. If somebody’s brother is murdered, or father or son is murdered, what right has the government to forgive such a person? That person or those persons who have been deprived of their dear one’s life, they alone have the right to forgive or not to forgive. This is exactly what the Holy Quran tells us. Law is the general, capital punishment is the general law. Murder for murder. But possibility of forgiveness is also open.
And that possibility of forgiveness would be utilized not by a third person judged, but by the next of kin of the person murdered. All right? Am I right in saying that if somebody, like for example you quoted, if their brother is murdered, is it at their discretion to forgive or to add up punishment? But then supposing that man has a medical problem or something, that he is a compulsive killer or something like that, then shouldn’t it be best to imprison him or kill him? Well, they would know anyway. If a person is a public danger, then the right of forgiveness would be taken away from the next of kin.
Because they can only forgive the past crime, they cannot forestall the possibility of a future crime. So that is a different type of problem. In that case the state will of course put her foot down and say for the sake of the safety of the people outside, you may forgive, but we can’t forgive and we must take preventive measures.
