Decapitation in Islam

{{main|Decapitation}}

The use of decapitation for punishment continued well into the 20th century in both Islamic and non-Islamic nations.{{cite book|page=156|author=Cliff Roberson, Dilip K. Das|title=An Introduction to Comparative Legal Models of Criminal Justice|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pQLLBQAAQBAJ|publisher=CRC Press|year=2008|isbn=9781420065930}}{{cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/02/decapitation_and_the_muslim_world.html|title=Decapitation and the Muslim World|author=Nina Rastogi|date=20 February 2009|work=Slate|access-date=10 August 2016|archive-date=27 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227221213/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/02/decapitation_and_the_muslim_world.html|url-status=live}} When done properly, it was once{{specify|date=February 2024}} considered a humane and honorable method of execution.

There is a debate as to whether the Quran discusses decapitation.Rachel Saloom (2005), "Is Beheading Permissible under Islamic Law – Comparing Terrorist Jihad and the Saudi Arabian Death Penalty", UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, vol. 10, pp. 221–49. One surah could potentially be used to provide a justification for decapitation in the context of war:

Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom 'til the war lay down its burdens. (47:4){{Cite web |title=Surah Muhammad - 1-38 |url=https://quran.com/muhammad |access-date=2023-08-30 |website=Quran.com |language=en}}

Among classical commentators, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi interprets the last sentence of 8:12 to mean striking at the enemies in any way possible, from their head to the tips of their extremities.{{Cite book|author=Nasr, Seyyed Hossein |author2=Dagli, Caner K. |author3=Dakake, Maria Massi |author4=Lumbard, Joseph E.B. |author5=Rustom, Mohammed | year=2015 | title=The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary |publisher=HarperCollins (Kindle edition)|page=Commentary to 8:12, Loc. 23676–23678}} Al-Qurtubi reads the reference to striking at the necks as conveying the gravity and severity of the fighting.{{Cite book|author=Nasr, Seyyed Hossein |author2=Dagli, Caner K. |author3=Dakake, Maria Massi |author4=Lumbard, Joseph E.B. |author5=Rustom, Mohammed | year=2015 | title=The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary |publisher=HarperCollins (Kindle edition)|page=Commentary to 47:4, Loc. 59632–59635}} For al-Qurtubi, al-Tabari, and Ibn Kathir, the expression indicates the brevity of the act, as it is confined to battle and is not a continuous command.

Some commentators have suggested that terrorists use alternative interpretations of these surahs to justify the decapitation of captives, however there is agreement among scholars that they have a different meaning. Furthermore, according to Rachel Saloom, surah 47:4 goes on to recommend generosity or ransom when waging war, and it refers to a period when Muslims were persecuted and had to fight for their survival.

Decapitation was the normal method of executing the death penalty under classical Islamic law.{{cite book|author=Rudolph Peters|title=Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century|url=https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmenti00pete_738|url-access=limited|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|page=[https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmenti00pete_738/page/n48 36]}} It was also, together with hanging, one of the ordinary methods of execution in the Ottoman Empire.{{cite book|author=Rudolph Peters|title=Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century|url=https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmenti00pete_738|url-access=limited|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|page=[https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmenti00pete_738/page/n113 101]}}

Currently, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which uses decapitation within its Islamic legal system.{{cite book |last1=Hood |first1=Roger |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7S-tBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA178 |title=The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective |last2=Hoyle |first2=Carolyn |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-19-870173-6 |page=178}} The majority of executions carried out by the government of Saudi Arabia are public beheadings,Janine di Giovanni, [http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/24/when-it-comes-beheadings-isis-has-nothing-over-saudi-arabia-277385.html "When It Comes to Beheadings, ISIS has Nothing Over Saudi Arabia"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141016223514/http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/24/when-it-comes-beheadings-isis-has-nothing-over-saudi-arabia-277385.html |date=16 October 2014 }}, Newsweek, 14 October 2014.Russell Goldman, [https://abcnews.go.com/US/saudi-arabias-beheading-nanny-strict-procedures/story?id=18182757 "Saudi Arabia's Beheading of a Nanny Followed Strict Procedures"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190718161820/https://abcnews.go.com/US/saudi-arabias-beheading-nanny-strict-procedures/story?id=18182757 |date=18 July 2019 }}, ABC News, 11 January 2013. which usually cause mass gatherings but are not allowed to be photographed or filmed.{{cite news|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/20/saudi-arabias-beheadings-are-public-but-it-doesnt-want-them-publicized/|title=Saudi Arabia's Beheadings Are Public, but It Doesn't Want Them Publicized|date=20 January 2015|work=Foreign Policy Magazine|author=Justine Drennen|access-date=5 March 2017|archive-date=27 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727215646/https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/20/saudi-arabias-beheadings-are-public-but-it-doesnt-want-them-publicized/|url-status=live}}

According to Amnesty, decapitation have been carried out by state authorities in Iran as recently as 2001,{{cite web|title=Iran / death penalty A state terror policy|url=https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/Rapport_Iran_final.pdf|publisher=International Federation for Human Rights|access-date=5 April 2016|page=38|date=16 March 2010|archive-date=19 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190419061540/https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/Rapport_Iran_final.pdf|url-status=live}} but as of 2014 is no longer in use.[http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/country-search-post.cfm?country=iran "Death Penalty Database: Iran"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190407144305/https://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/country-search-post.cfm%3Fcountry%3Diran |date=7 April 2019 }}, deathpenaltyworldwide.org, Cornell Law School. Retrieved 13 June 2016. It is a legal form of execution in Yemen, but the punishment has been suspended. It is also a legal form of execution under Sharia in Zamfara State, Nigeria.

• The Islamic followers of the Prophet Muhammad executed the men of the Jewish Arab tribe of Banu Qurayza for a treaty violation that lead to the deaths of many Muslims, with several hundreds killed in 627.{{Cite encyclopedia|author=Watt, W. Montgomery | year= 2012 | title=Ḳurayẓa |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam| edition=2nd|publisher=Brill |editor=P. Bearman |editor2=Th. Bianquis |editor3=C.E. Bosworth |editor4=E. van Donzel |editor5=W.P. Heinrichs| doi= 10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4535 }}
• After the Battle of Hattin (1187), Saladin personally beheaded Raynald of Châtillon; a Christian knight who served in the Second Crusade and organized attacks against Islam's two holiest cities.{{cite book |last=Newman |first=Sharan |date=2007 |title=The Real History Behind the Templars |publisher=Penguin |page=133 |isbn=978-0425215333 }}
• Forces of the Ottoman Empire invaded and laid siege to the city of Otranto and its citadel in 1480. According to a traditional account, after capture, more than 800 of its inhabitants – who refused to convert to Islam – were beheaded. They are known as the "Martyrs of Otranto".{{Cite web

|last = Bunson

|first = Matthew

|title = How the 800 Martyrs of Otranto Saved Rome

|work = Catholic Answers

|url = http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/how-the-800-martyrs-of-otranto-saved-rome

|access-date = 11 February 2012

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131217224555/http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/how-the-800-martyrs-of-otranto-saved-rome

|archive-date = 17 December 2013

|url-status = dead

}} Historicity of this account has been questioned by modern scholars.{{cite book|title=Creating East And West: Renaissance Humanists And the Ottoman Turks|author=Nancy Bisaha|year=2004|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|page=158}}

• Muhammad Ahmad declared himself Mahdi in 1880 and led Jihad against the Ottoman Empire and their British allies. He and his followers beheaded opponents, Christian and Muslim alike including the British general Charles Gordon.Byron Farwell, Prisoners of the Mahdi (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1989), pp. 156-7.

{{main|Beheading by Salafi jihadist groups}}

Extremist Salafi jihadist groups such as ISIS and Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad have used beheading as a method of killing captives. Since 2002, ISIS have circulated beheading videos as a form of terror and propaganda.{{cite web |url=https://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-beheadings-sow-fear-prompt-muslim-revulsion-205000146.html |title=Jihadists beheadings sow fear, prompt Muslim revulsion |publisher=Yahoo! News |agency=Agence France-Presse |author=Sara Hussein and Rita Daou |date=3 September 2014 |access-date=3 September 2014 |archive-date=27 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727164819/https://news.yahoo.com/jihadists-beheadings-sow-fear-prompt-muslim-revulsion-205000146.html |url-status=live }}{{cite book|author=James Watson, Anne Hill|title=Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|year=2015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gJCOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA325|page=325|isbn=9781628921489}} Their actions have been condemned by militant and other terrorist groups, as well as by mainstream Islamic scholars and organizations, who have contrasted Saudi government executions, which conform to standards that minimize pain, with the non-state actors who have "chosen a slow, torturous sawing method to terrorize the Western audience".{{cite journal|title=Beheading in the Name of Islam|author=Timothy R. Furnish|journal=Middle East Quarterly|pages=51–57|volume=12|number=2|year=2005}}

• Beheading video

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Category:Execution methods

Category:History of Islam

Category:Islam and capital punishment