Comment: To Flog or not to Flog
15 Jan 2012, 10:28 AM
Ben Abdul-Rahman Plewright
A few months ago, a protest took place in the Maldives in defense of the Islamic Huddud (punishment) after a UN delegate spoke out against whipping for adultery from the Maldivian Parliament.
A few years ago, I had heard it argued that it was not Islamic to literally apply the Huddud in this day and age. I wanted to know for sure who was correct about this issue from an Islamic point of view, the fundamentalists or the liberal Islamic scholars.
Seeking answers, I dug out and read a few of my old volumes of Sahih Muslim, as rendered into English by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi. The experience I had wading through those pages rekindled that warm flame within me of the Islamic spirit of Mercy, the Mercy of Allah for all humanity.
This Mercy is understood by all Islamic scholars to be the supreme attribute of Allah. I came to believe that it is perfectly justifiable within a Sunni Islamic context to have the opinion that it is against this Merciful Essence of Islam to literally apply the Huddud in our day and age.
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