Presumed Innocent & Punishment for adultery

Presumed Innocent (1990). In the end of the movie, the adulterer blames in absolute terms her wife for murdering someone he slept with. The women committed fornication; the man, adultery. The wife made the plan of killing the women her husband had slept with like a water-tight mathematical equation with best results for her, being a doctoral mathematics student. The plan is irrelevant here.

In Islam, with 4 witnesses the adulterer(s) are stoned to death; fornicators are treated differently. In the presence of circumstantial evidence - around which the fate of accused in the movie rested - the guilty goes to jail for whole lot of years, as per religious scholars of Pakistan (at least).

One can ponder over the wisdom behind this divine injunction in many ways. One logic the movie provided is the rage, disintegration and destruction adultery brings to family which makes its punishment - in the presence of such strict condition - much more severe and applicable. Surely as Deterrence to say the least. Deterrence is something Islam so much professes in theory and practice from national defense to self-matters.

Image source.

Universality & Internal Diversity of Islamic Jurisprudence

Islamophobic politicians, intellectuals and all sort of people in Europe/West think that Islam needs to pass through the same phase Christianity did in medieval period with its enlightenment and reformation to really 'inhabit the West'. Well, it only proves, as an initial note, the reality revealed by Qur'an that these kuffar would never like Muslims until we become like them. Nonetheless, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad in his speech in islamabad talks about these 'absent-minded claims' as simply being products of lack of knowledge of Islam and their own history. Westerns, generally, have always tried to view islam and its ideals from the eyes of their philosophies and mindset, unfortunately modernized muslims are committing the same error. Shaykh Murad talks about a Dutch politician's onslaught on Islam in West who thinks that Islam must be reformed or marginalized:

Fortuyn’s error was to impose a Christian squint on Islam. As a practising Catholic, he imported assumptions about the nature of religious authority that ignore the multi-centred reality of Islam. On doctrine, we try to be united - but he is not interested in our doctrine. On fiqh, we are substantially diverse. Even in the medieval period, one of the great moral and methodological triumphs of the Muslim mind was the confidence that a variety of madhhabs could conflict formally, but could all be acceptable to God. In fact, we could propose as the key distinction between a great religion and a sect the ability of the former to accommodate and respect substantial diversity. Fortuyn, and other European politicians, seek to build a new Iron Curtain between Islam and Christendom, on the assumption that Islam is an ideology functionally akin to communism, or to the traditional churches of Europe.

Faith in the Future,

A talk by Shaykh in islambad, 2002. 

Qada Umari: Making up Salats Missed in a Lifetime

By Mufti Shafiq Jakhura

Q. Is there any proof from authentic ahadith of Qada Umari?

A."Hazrat Anas ibn Maalik (R.A.) narrates in a hadith of Sahih Bukhari that Rasulullah mentioned:

من نسي صلاة فليصل اذا ذكرها لا كفارة لها الا ذلك

" Whoever forgets to pray a Salah, it is obligatory upon him that he pray that Salah when he remembers. There is no other way that this can be made up." ( Sahih Bukhari , Kitaabul Mawaaqeet - Hadith 597)

The words of Rasulullah in a hadith of Muslim are as follows:

اذا رقد احدكم عن الصلاة او غفل عنها فليصل اذا ذكرها فان الله عز و جل يقول اقم الصلاة لذكري

" Whenever one of you misses a Salah due to sleeping or due to negligence, it is obligatory upon him that he pray the Salah when he remembers it because Allah (SWT) has metioned, "Perform Salah when you remember me" (Hadith 1569)

In a Hadith of Sunan Nas'ai it is mentioned:

سئل رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم عن الرجل يرقد عن الصلاة او يغفل عنها قال كفارتها ان يصلها اذا ذكرها

" Rasulullah was asked regarding a person who misses a Salah due to sleep or negligence. Rasulullah mentioned that its compensation is that he should perform the Salah when he remembers. "(Nasaai p 171)

These Ahadith as well as many others are clear that any Salah that has been missed must be performed when one remembers. In fact the ayah of the Qur’an recited by Rasulullah in the hadith of Muslim above, also indicates that this ayah of the Holy Quran refers to qada Salah as well, as it was recited in the context of qada.

There is a consensus among the jurists that qada must be made for missed Salahs.

And Allah Ta'ala Knows Best!

Source.