The question/claim: "Isn't qiṣāṣ — 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life' — a primitive law of revenge? Modern morality leaves the killer to the state's cool-headed justice; yet the Qur'an (2:178) empowers the victim's kin to 'have the killer executed' — isn't that sanctifying the blood feud?"
Context
- 2:178 legislates qiṣāṣ (equal retaliation in intentional killing), but immediately grants the victim's guardian (walī) three options: to demand qiṣāṣ, to pardon in return for diya (blood-money), or to forgive outright. The verse calls pardon and diya "an alleviation and a mercy from your Lord" (2:178).
- 2:179 states the rationale plainly: "In qiṣāṣ there is life for you, O people of understanding" — the aim is not revenge but protecting society's life through deterrence. Mehmet Okuyan renders it "O people of deep reason! In qiṣāṣ there is life for you" (interpretation: here qiṣāṣ is a RIGHT, while pardon and diya are a VIRTUE; forgiving is "an important alleviation and mercy").
- 17:33, while granting the guardian authority, adds "let him not exceed limits in killing" — stressing proportionality and a bar against excess.
- 42:40: "The recompense of an evil is an evil like it; but whoever pardons and makes peace, his reward is with God." And 5:45: "whoever remits it as charity, it is an expiation for him" — pardon is plainly exalted as the higher moral option.
Two readings
- Classical fiqh/tafsīr: qiṣāṣ is the primary right; pardon/diya are an exception and concession granted over it. Ibn Kathīr reads "in qiṣāṣ there is life" as deterrence: executing the killer guarantees the saving of other lives (interpretation). Mufti Muhammad Shafi (Maʿārif al-Qurʾān) calls diya and pardon "an alleviation and mercy from your Lord." The clause "a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, a female for a female" is disputed among the classics. On sex, all four schools agree a man is executed in qiṣāṣ for murdering a woman — they read the clause through the generality of "a life for a life" (5:45), not as a same-sex restriction. On the free/slave and Muslim/non-Muslim axes, however, it is Abū Ḥanīfa who extends qiṣāṣ most broadly, holding a Muslim liable for killing a dhimmī (commutable to diya) on the strength of 5:45's generality, while the majority (Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad) restrict qiṣāṣ to a free/Muslim victim and require diya otherwise (attribution: school positions).
- Qur'an-centric / academic reading: qiṣāṣ is not a command to take revenge but a ceiling/limit placed upon it (interpretation). 2:179 fixes the rationale as "the protection of life"; the text centres deterrence that prevents killing, not a death sentence as such. Amin Ahsan Islahi notes that punishing the killer looks like taking a second life yet in truth secures the whole society's life (interpretation). On this reading the text's trajectory ascends from chaos (limitless blood feud) first to proportionality, then to pardon.
Honest limit
Let us give both the fair side of the objection and its limit.
- The fair part (a tension remaining in the text): the clause "a free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, a female for a female" (2:178) appears to grade the penalty by social status (freedom/slavery, sex); critics say this carries the era's hierarchical structure into the text and sits in tension with an "equal-life" principle. Some classical scholars in fact accepted this tension, holding the clause superseded by the generality of "a life for a life" (5:45) (interpretation).
- Historical function: "an eye for an eye" was placed into a setting of disproportionate blood feud, where a whole tribe could be killed for one person, or many commoners for one noble; here lex talionis is not incitement to revenge but a ceiling that caps it at the "exact equal" (interpretation). The same principle appears in the Torah, and 5:45 relays it explicitly: "We prescribed for them therein...".
- What is certain in the text / disputed in interpretation: certain — the text encourages pardon and diya (2:178; 42:40; 5:45) and commands proportionality (17:33). Disputed — neither "pure revenge" nor "full abolition (of the death penalty)" is the text's definitive conclusion: the text encourages pardon but does not mandate it, nor does it abolish the right of qiṣāṣ. Both readings risk pulling the text in a single direction.
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Source: Qur'anic verses (M. Okuyan meal). Presented soberly and respectfully, with a text/interpretation distinction.