Beard doesn’t harm

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Letters to the Editor

Beard doesn’t harm
29 March 2007
DOES a beard harm people? It is distressing that some people are annoyed at seeing a Muslim with a long beard. The media has set the mind of these people so rigid as to think that the long beard is a symbol of a terrorist.
Alas! Is it possible to make a bomb with the beard? Or, were those who rained bombs in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine bearded people? The most notorious dictators in the history of the world were beardless. Sikhs are widely enjoying this individual/religious right without facing any questions.
The long beard of a scientist is often seen as a symbol of his intellectual orientations. A pastor with a beard is seen as a pious person.
We Muslims never blame the religion when Hindus, Christians, Jews, or Sikhs do any wrong. It is despicable to call a terrorist who bears a name of Muslim as ‘Islamic terrorist’. We Muslims do not call Hitler a Christian terrorist even as he was a Christian and killed millions of Jews. We do not call the Americans who put atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed millions of innocent people ‘Christian terrorists’, even as the men who bombed were Christians by religion.
We do not call anyone a Hindu terrorist even when some of them have killed innocent Christians and Muslims in India during riots etc. So, why this tag on Muslims?
— Mammedutty Nilambur

Muslims and the Shariah laws

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Muslims and the Shariah laws
4 May 2007

MOST people, including some Muslims, have a misconception that Muslims are allowed to handle Shariah laws (Islamic law) individually. This is wrong and against the tenets of Islam.
For example, according to Islamic law, a rapist should be given the death penalty. But, punishing a person for his guilt, in the Islamic way, is allowed only in an Islamic state where the jurisprudence is based on Holy Quran and Sunnah .i.e. Shariah.
There will be a judicial court to decide whether the accused person/convict is punishable or not. The verdict will be given only based on the proceedings of the Shariah court, which is based on evidence and proof. So, it is clear that Muslims are not allowed to handle law and order individually even in an Islamic state. Instead, it has to be done by the concerned authority of the state.
Islam is not a religion to punish people for their silly crimes; and there are many options in Islam to escape from even a murder case, like by giving compensation to the family members of the deceased (by offering blood money). Without any compensation too, convicts can escape if the relatives of victim willingly admit to the release of the convict from jail.
Some people may feel that punishment under Islamic laws is too severe, but, in reality, criminals deserve to be treated that way. They may even murder a person for the worldly gains and never bother about the value of respecting women and children.
- Mammedutty Nilambur,