Sunday, December 12, 2010
Annals of Islamic law: Eye for an eye
I'm a little judgmental, and I judge every aspect of this story to reflect poorly on Iran and Islam:
IRAN'S supreme court has upheld a sentence of blinding with acid for a man who blinded his lover's husband, under the Islamic "eye-for-an-eye" justice code, a government daily said today.
The convict, named only as Mojtaba, 25, threw acid in the face of Alireza, 25, a taxi driver in Iran's clerical hub city of Qom, after an "illicit affair" with the victim's wife, Mojdeh, also 25, said the newspaper Iran.
The supreme court has upheld a lower court ruling that Mojtaba be blinded with drops of acid, in line with Islamic justice, which allows for "qisas," or eye-for-an-eye retribution, in cases of violent crime, it said.
Set aside for a moment the horrific sentence -- perhaps it does fit the crime. But what about the crime? What kind of crazed sicko blinds another dude with acid out of spite, even over adultery? Even allowing for the honor culture nonsense that precipitates violent retaliation, what kind of wussy throws acid? Find a pair, Mojtaba, and throw a punch when your woman steps out. You'll feel better, you'll look like a tough guy to the macho clowns you call friends and family, and under the eye-for-an-eye rule the ultimate punishment won't even be all that bad.
14 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Dec 12, 12:56:00 AM:
Just in general, what is up with this acid throwing crap anyway? I mean who keeps that stuff around? Is there some third world process I don't know about that requires quantities of that stuff?
By 
Noocyte, at
Sun Dec 12, 01:07:00 AM:
Islamic culture is one of the most horrid examples of primate dominance-seeking that I can conjure. This twisted, perpetual obsession with status/"honor," with its unending quest to mark territory and assert ownership over mates and its Taleonic perversions of "justice" simply makes my stomach churn.
That one could look upon displays like this and retain any semblance of 'cultural relativism' drives home to me the sheer power of denial at the heart of Liberal thought.
By Don Cox, at
Sun Dec 12, 05:24:00 AM:
"I mean who keeps that stuff around?"
I assume it is acid from car batteries.
The whole story is indeed disgusting.
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 07:29:00 AM:
TH, the quoted item reads the other way around vis a vis original offender and offendee in the adulterous relationship.
JLW III
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 07:49:00 AM:
A woman has an affair and is then sentenced to death by stoning. Seems a little excessive, even in a theocracy.
A guy gets cuckolded AND blinded by acid. The perp getting a sentence of "blinded by acid" doesn't bother me so much. Not every society has the means to put violent offenders in jail for lengthy sentences. It wasn't that long ago that England was routinely simple theft.
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 07:51:00 AM:
Meant to say:
It wasn't that long ago that England was hanging people for simple theft.
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 08:01:00 AM:
Acid isn't that bad. Try Drano for a really bad result.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Dec 12, 02:35:00 PM:
I certainly wouldn't have any problem setting Bin Laden on fire and dropping him off a 100 story building into a vat of pigs blood.
Must be the hidden Muslin in me...
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 03:01:00 PM:
Repeat after me, it's a peaceful and beautiful religion ...
By , at
Sun Dec 12, 07:15:00 PM:
Go here and see - if you have the stomach for it.
http://www.islam-watch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=493:epidemic-of-acid-attack-on-women-in-pakistan&catid=73:brahmachari&Itemid=58
By , at
Mon Dec 13, 12:29:00 AM:
> Go here and see - if you have the stomach for it.
That's pretty awful stuff. But I fail to see how this (and also Tigerhawk's original post) relates to Islam. This is *NOT* Islam but a honor-shame culture. And I am not an apologist to Islam but someone who thinks that our enemy in this clash of civilizations has an Islamic face but deep down has honor-shame cultural underpinnings. (for more, read Richard Landes' essays on honor-shame cultures, zero-sum outcomes, and civil/prime-divider societies.)
I did read each women's story, and their fate happened to them due to the prevalent culture and not due to Islam.
Other than that, this url is a gem, and I will bookmark it. This is a perfect weapon against those multiculturalists who preach that all cultures are equal. My question to these people is if they approve this aspect of that culture, and if not, then which other parts they approve or think puts it on equal (moral) footings with ours.
Vilmos
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Dec 13, 01:25:00 AM:
"But I fail to see how this (and also Tigerhawk's original post) relates to Islam."
You can't be serious.
Iran is an *Islamic* theocracy. Their criminal code is directly derived from *Islamic* law. And believe it or not, Jafaari law (the specific school used in Iran) is actually one of the more liberal schools. They allow female autonomy at the age of majority, for instance.
"I did read each women's story, and their fate happened to them due to the prevalent culture and not due to Islam."
Islam IS the prevalent culture!
I applaud your apparent attempt to understand our enemies' culture, but you have to go all the way. Islam developed within the Arab civilization. It includes Arab "honor-shame" concepts (and many other things). The phrase "blacken his face" and variations thereof are scattered about the Quran; that's an Arab term for being shamed or doing something shameful. And the spread of Islam spread the honor-shame social more to lands and peoples that didn't have it before, and strengthened it where it existed (Sicily is a candidate example for this), just as it spread polygamy, slavery, strong emphasis on a patriarchal family unit, forced conversions, and so on.
"This is *NOT* Islam..."
Yes it is. To our delicate, Western eyes, Shari'a is an ugly thing, but it is what it is. Or perhaps you have some other explanation why the same philosophy of punishment allegedly derived from the same source of law (Shari'a) is used in another, foreign, enemy nation of a different "culture?" Or companion examples from Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Indonesia?
I thought that whole "Islam is the Religion of Peace" propaganda thing had died out by now, after nine years of bombings, televised beheadings, stabbings, kidnappings, torture, mass shootings, etc. in its name.
Of course, I also think it's ridiculous that the idea ever gained credence. 3 of the first 4 caliphs following Muhammad (who was himself a warlord who executed or enslaved large numbers of people) died violent deaths: 2 at the hands of fellow Muslims, and the 3rd at the hands of a slave extracting vengeance for oppression. And all of them waged zealous war against the infidels, war which, generally speaking, never stopped and which is actually doctrinally required.
"Fight them until there is no discord and all religions are for God." Quran 2:193; also at 8:39, word for word.
"Fight those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor follow the Religion of Truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgement of superiority [aka jizya] and they are in a state of subjection." Quran 9:29. (Translation here by Maulana Muhammad Ali, who likes to take liberties with his translations to make Islam look better to Westerners; such as his translation of the previous verse I cite where he replaced "discord" [fitna] with "persecution" in order to try to color the "fight the infidels" message as a defensive one... [which is why I translated it myself] A final word on the translations here. The word in Arabic for "fight" is the same as the word "kill." There is no distinction. So "kill them... until all religions are for God" is a perfectly acceptable translation)
By , at
Mon Dec 13, 07:23:00 PM:
How many Islamic enemies do we have? A billion ... a million ... a thousand?
DF82's post suggests that it's a billion. Indeed the whole point of the lede is to suggest that Islam is barbaric.
I'm inclined to believe that it's less than a million and may even be closer to a thousand. Much of Islam may hate the USA but that doesn't mean they have the will or the means to be a threat.
Yes there's a threat. But if I'm correct that it's a smaller number that we actually have to worry about, then different tactics are in order ... it's a different kind of war that we're in and our tactics ought to align with the nature and scope of the threat.
Whether Islam is barbaric or not is just academic. Like Captain Kirk, I believe in the Prime Directive except where our national interests are involved. Were it not for oil and Israel, we wouldn't give a rat's ass about Islam and the entire Middle East. Those ought to be our only priorities there, in addition to forestalling terrorism.
ps My NYPD sources tell me that heroin is making a comeback. One offshoot of what we're doing in Afghanistan.
By Don Cox, at
Tue Dec 14, 06:08:00 AM:
"Not every society has the means to put violent offenders in jail for lengthy sentences."
Iran certainly does.
As for the number of enemies, count the training camps and multiply by the number of jihadis trained in each. I guess around 50,000 total, but it could be more.
