11-09-2006, 05:58 PM
Bismillah
as salam alykom
i think when you wish to discuss something related to sharia, it is better to put on all aspects.
The rape victim on the last link arclight posted (saudi) is a married woman who was alone in a car with a man to whom she is not married. Now, in Sharia, this situation alone does not establish the crime of Zina. However, in my opinion, I think the judge passed his virdict of 90 lashes using the Ta`zeer rule. Ta`zeer is a rule by which a ruler is entitled to apply a penalty as he sees deemed fit.
Now in this case, she was penalized with a 90 lashes for being married and alone in a car with a man. It has nothing to do with comparing her crime with the severity with rape as a crime. Probably, she was also held accountable along with her male companion for being raped. I mean, in this particular case, she put herself in the situation. I m even surprised that her family are asking for an appeal in order to pass a harsher penalty. Arclight, re check the article, the criminals got a jail sentence coupled with a number of lashes which came to a 1000 in one of the criminals and the case is still opened. As such, the issue is not comparing between the two crimes, but rather handling each one of them separately.
See, arclight, Islamic sharia is not only there to penalize a criminal but rather to establish a soud and proper community. A married woman is not supposed, under any circumstances, to be with a strange man in a car. Just look at the reprecussions, she got physically assaulted, raped, scandilized of course, i m not really sure what is the position of her husband.
Thus, hope now things are more clear arclight, as u may see, each given case is really an individual. But at the end applying Sharia is there to remedy those societal diseases which are potential in any community.