-Maumoon Fahmy-

News had been circulated throughout media regarding an incident where a female 18-year-old fell unconscious while being flogged for fornication charges. Amnesty International had criticized the incident saying it was inhumane and cruel and called on the Maldivian government to stop implicating the Islamic ruling of flogging adding that Maldives had signed declarations against inhumane practices and torture.

However, Universal Declaration for Human Rights, the most famous of such declaration, of which Maldives is a signatory, clearly stipulates that each human being had the freedom in embracing his religion of choice. Thus Maldives had embraced Islam. Thus Maldives are obliged to implicate the rulings of Islam. As for the Human Rights, the world has acknowledged the development the Maldives had undergone in respecting the Human Rights. They never for once mentioned of the flogging until the media made it an issue.

Besides, the foreign minister had revealed his confidence that the Maldives had a great chance of being elected for a Human Rights Council seat of the United Nations for 2011-2013 term.

In the declaration, of which the Amnesty was so eager to speak about, only mentioned about explicit inhuman practices, all sorts of torture and they had failed to bring solid proofs of the mention of the flogging as religious ruling, among the inhuman activities mentioned by the declaration. Moreover the Universal Human Rights Declaration clearly gives us freedom of religion.

~How does it come up to flogging? Most flogged are women?

Even someone who knows little information about Islam knows that Islam strictly forbids anything that would lead to fornication.

According to Islamic Scholars, if a man and woman remain in an isolated place it could pave the way for fornication. If you examine each and every case of fornication, you would find that fornication is the result of a series of forbidden acts which ultimately lead up to the act.

According to the statistics in media reports, most of those who were convicted for fornication were women. It is explainable and not surprising. If made the “mistake”, it is the woman who becomes pregnant. One can’t convict a man without the statements of four witnesses. Meanwhile the man could avoid the torment of the world; no doubt. But he would be burnt severely in the painful torment of the Hellfire in the Hereafter. Remember, we are Muslims and we believe in heaven and hell.

~Once a woman is flogged and repented, she won’t be punished in the hereafter

Another important thing that we have to remember as we say we are Muslims is that a repented and convicted woman would not get punishment in the Hereafter according to most of the Islamic Scholars. Speaking in this regard, the president of the Jamiathusalaf Sheikh Abdullah Ben Mohamed Ibrahim also affirmed that it by referring to the Sunnah of the Holy Messenger (PBUH). Sheikh Abdullah said that if a person is punished in the world (for example, a woman being flogged for fornication), she won’t be punished in the hereafter.

~Committing a sin not a problem? Punishment is the problem?

Having said that, the question needed to be posed is that why should an unmarried woman want to lay down with a man while being well aware of the punishment and the consequence? Professing that you are a Muslim why commit a god-forbidden act? The woman would be very much aware that it is she who would be burdened if she becomes pregnant as the result of the act. So the solution to the problem is to build your lives in accordance with Islam i.e. keeping away from such unlawful acts. So flogging should not be the concern to you as long as you shape your life the Islamic way. At this pace, it seems that the problem is not to commit fornication while being a Muslim but rather its punishment?

~“Inhumane, torture, degrading?”

It is not considered a torture to steal one’s lifelong earnings in a little space of time. But it is considered as torture to chop off the hands of the robber? It is not considered an inhuman act to kill many innocent lives. But it is considered as torture to give the capital punishment to the murderer?

In addition How many of us think about the mental illness and suffering an illegitimate child would undergo? The child suffers most of the time the mental torture of not being loved and cared by his father and often times his mother would fail to care for him. In the family he is considered as a symbol of shame for them thus would be humiliated in the family. But what was the fault of the poor child to deserve this? The child is 100% innocent. But the child is being tortured mentally and sometimes physically throughout the life due to the acts of two people. You still consider flogging these people inhumane and degrading?

~What do they say?

Lord Scarman, the well-known British judicial champion of civil liberties, writes that "it is important to a civilised system of justice to have humane values at all levels of its administration" and Islam provides for this. Flogging in Islamic law is "not just a savage beating inflicted capriciously according to the whims of brutal guards" but it is done "with control, in accord with justice and in the kindest possible way in the circumstances" to the extent that one English writer says that "the best comparison for Islamic flogging is the caning of children at school". Even the President of the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 1967 declared that "certain types of offences call for severe chastisement, and flogging in the case of such offences cannot be regarded as cruel, inhuman or degrading"

Regarding how to flog, Sheikh Munajjid, the popular scholar of Medina writes “It must be done with moderate force, and the person carrying out the punishment should not raise his arm so high that his armpit shows, and he should not use a new whip, or strip the person of his clothing unless it is something like a thick coat, which should be removed. The person being punished should be flogged standing, according to the majority of scholars; he should not be made to lie down and he should not be bound, and blows to the face, head and genitals are to be avoided…the whip should be of moderate quality, not so new that it would cause injury and not so worn out that it hardly hurts him”

~The Scholar’s verdict

Sheikh Abdullah Ben Mohamed said that flogging the fornicators is a commandment of Allah and there is no room for any Muslim to abandon the commandment of Allah while being a Muslim.

“The aim of those who speak against this ruling were not working to defend Women’s Rights but to mock Islam. We should be ashamed of the increased amount of fornication among our society. And then they are saying that in the Maldives some of the Islamic rulings are not implicated. The fact that one ruling was not implicated doesn’t mean that we have to abandon the rest. If we claim that we are Muslims there is no option but to implicate the rulings of Islam” Sheikh Abdullah said.

~As we call on severe punishment for the pedophiles…

Recently we are calling on to give stricter punishments to the pedophiles. According to them the reason of the high frequency of the pedophiles was because of lenient punishment. Even the parliamentarians had professed the punishment mentioned in the Quran as the best cure for the problem.

Thus it is a shame that insincere propagandas are being carried out throughout media against the commandment of Allah. Any word said against flogging would be nothing but an encouragement to filth and the treachery of the Non-Muslims to corrupt the youth of the Muslim generation.