ভূমিকা
Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Spirituality of the Shi‘ism and Other Discourses Discourse Eleven: Why Must the Hand of a Thief be Severed?! The principle of severing the hand of a thief, which is a punishment in accordance with the Islamic sharī‘ah, may be broken down and analyzed according to two basic propositions: First: thieves must be punished for the wrong acts they commit; Second: the befitting punishment is severance of the hand.
Respecting the rights of others The first issue, i.e. punishment of a thief, is not specific to the holy religion of Islam. According to the known history of humankind, various human societies—including primitive familial communities, tribal societies, feudal societies, and also great and small dictatorships, democracies, and theocracies—assigned punishments for thieves, which were and still are carried out.
It is evident that this decision in the human world is based upon the principle that according to realism, the most important and valuable thing understood by humans is life, and they know no duty more necessary than attaining happiness in life. They collectively toil and struggle in the society to earn their basic needs—i.e. various types of possessions and wealth—and use them.
In truth, as per sociology, humans spend half of their life pool, for which no finite value may be maintained, to procure living capital for the other half. It is also evident that the value of preservation and protection of an article is equal to that of the article itself. An object that has no protection against termination is considered to be worthless.
Consequently, we must conclude that perseveration of the products of human efforts generally has an equal value to half of a person’s life, just as the value of mortal safety is equal to that of a person’s entire life. Moreover, breaking or ruining the fence erected around the products of a society is equal to destroying half the life of that society; just as taking away the mortal security of a society is equal to massacring all the people of that society.