Islam and Human Rights — Page 99
Article 5 99 cannot be regarded as cruel, inhuman or de grading. There is one other offence- theft- which Islam classi - fies as one calling for a severe penalty. In this case the penalty is “cutting off of hands” (5:39). This sounds harsh, but there are several mitigating considerations which should be kept in mind. In the first place it has been uniformly held that the penalty is attracted only in extreme and hard ened cases. To attract the extreme penalty, there must be an element of aggravation in the offence committed. The slightest element of extenuation would procure relief for an offender. ‘Umar, the second Khalifah, was always on the look-out for any such element, so as to reduce or modify the penalty, and cases so dealt with by him became pre cedents for those who followed. In the next place it is worth recalling that in England, for instance, theft of property worth more than a shilling was classified as felony and, like every other felony, was punished with death, up to as late as 1861. That, however, may not furnish much comfort to the humanist of today. But there is an element of comfort in the situation. It is true that the Arabic expression in the Quran, which literally construed means “cut off their hands”, was so construed in early and medieval times. In modern times in most Islamic States a term