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Comment by pstuart | Hacker News Reader

Inspired by a quote from MBS in the article, I search for Qaran and death penalty and found this on Wikipedia:

    The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter, Except for those who return repenting before you apprehend them. And know that Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

    — Qur'an, Sura 5, ayat 33 & 34[8]

That's incredibly vague and appears to be made for abuse of interpretation.

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> That's incredibly vague and appears to be made for abuse of interpretation.

One could argue this is true for most (if not all) religious texts

It really depends on ones interpretation, and that definitely shouldn't be derived by a monarch.

Islam used to have a very solid legal system but it has not developed past the late Khilafa ages.

One you have a religious manuscript, and submissive population, you can pull off whatever shit you want and you can always find an obscure religious passage to support your claim. MBS is such a disgrace for all humanity, not just Islam, and I dare wish to see Hijaz is outside the control of Aal-Saaud.

(I get that in Paul Graham's original intent for HN there's no religion, and the following is also very intense, but now that we're talking about religion and death I feel right about this.)

Well what constitutes war against GOD, referred to as "Allah" here, and Mohammed (my choice of words reflect that I consider him a real prophet, but specific to Islam, not Christianity, it's subjective like fame) is not elaborated on, probably in another section it goes into detail, and plus you have to use this old, outdated tech that isn't compatible with anything these days, "judgment." Nobody talks about it much anymore.

As for the specific punishments for that harm, it's not vague at all. Execution, OK so in Arabia that means you put their neck on a chopping block, made of wood for the same reason as a kitchen cutting board, a man with a mask whose job title is "executioner" walks up with an axe I think it is, I don't know I haven't watched them live but I know in Saudi Arabia it happens in the public square, some same place every time, everyone can go watch; the masked man lifts his axe, well from that point it's too graphic even textually for HN. Then crucifixion, it's the destiny of Christ, for good reason because that was the most feared form of torture and death in the Roman Empire. Then finally, the other punishments are lighter, and the opposite-sides rule for severing hands and feet is a way to be merciful so the punished blasphemer can walk on crutches at very least, not be absolutely crippled. Exile sounds light but it's rough, most people end up at the bottom of society if they're exiled, second class citizens and often slaves. Obviously much better though. So that's where judgment comes in, this isn't digital, it's much more consuetudinary. The judge can decide what the punishment will be commensurately with the unique nuance of the transgression.

I hope that clarifies the vagueness.

> opposite-sides rule for severing hands and feet is a way to be merciful so the punished blasphemer can walk on crutches at very least

I didn't see any "/s" in your post so I'm somewhat confused.

Discussion of religion gets dangerous because it seems to morph into attacks. I've no interest in that but I do in laws in that name because then it's literally my (and everybody else's) business.

The key issue is melding of Church and State -- not a good idea according to the founders of the United States. Giving the Church the power of the State is a recipe for tyranny.

While it doesn't get enough attention, there's an active effort for the United States to do this very thing. We need to have civil dialog for the repudiation of that but avoid framing it in an attack on religion itself.

If you read this and disagree, go ahead and down-vote this but please explain why so perhaps we can someday find agreement.

I believe they are referring to qisas, which is a form of retaliation in kind. It's pretty explicit that you can kill a murderer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qisas

No, simple blasphemy is a crime.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-execution-apostasy/...

The MBS quote says they got rid of every other form of the death penalty, but they couldn't get rid of this one clearly mentioned in the Qur'an. And the only crime the article says these executions were for was murder. So I'm going to guess MBS was talking about qisas.

MBS is a highly biased source to work from. Not just qisas: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/20/saudi-arabia-alleged-chi...

Laws there are, to put it politely, archaic. It should be acceptable to discuss the law in a hacker sense -- what are the rules, how are they broken, what are the security concerns etc. I've no interest in diminishing other cultures, but any law of any land is ripe for review.

In this situation, we collectively look the other way because oil.

>MBS is a highly biased source to work from.

Yeah, but when we're discussing a quote he made he's knd of the only authority.

I don't get your argument. "MBS said x, he was probably talking about this vague passage." "No, he was probably talking about this clear one." "Yeah but he's the worst so who cares what he's talking about." OK? I wasn't defending the guy.

Sorry, there was no intent to make it sound like you were defending him. He is literally the authority in this case but it doesn't make his statements accurate.

> "Yeah but he's the worst so who cares what he's talking about."

It's not that he's horrible, its that he is incentivized to misrepresent things if it makes him look better. It's a natural assumption with any person in power.

Note: I believe that everybody is entitled to their own relationship with "God" however that may be (I'm an atheist), but these religions want to extend their laws on everybody else -- and that's a serious problem that needs to be addressed by society.

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