فقہ اسلامی میں قسامت کا تصور

The Concept of Qasamah in Islamic Jurisprudence

Abstract

Islam lays great emphasis on security and the sanctity of human life. The holy Quran terms killing of an innocent person as killing of the whole humanity. It prohibits unjust killing of human being in unequivocal terms. The holy Qur’an and Sunnah terms killing of an innocent person as one of the greatest sins. An eternal torment is the destiny of a killer who takes life of a person unjustly. However, it is also a bitter fact that hardly   a crime free society could be found   anywhere in the world. Peace prevails only in those societies where culprits are brought to justice. This is why Islamic penal code has prescribed punishments for all kinds of crimes. It has prescribed punishment of Qisâs in case of intentional murder and Diyat (blood money in case of killing of a person by mistake, it is also due in case if remission is made by the heirs in intentional murder case). To prove the crime of murder, testimony of two reliable witnesses or confession of the killer is required before the court. However, if a corpse is found in a place where killer is unknown and witnesses are unavailable,   then Islam enjoins the process of Qasâmah to safeguard rights of the heirs of the deceased. Qasâmah is a process of taking oath by fifty persons selected by the heirs of the slain. In this article the concept of Qasâmah has been elaborated. It  has three parts  ,in the  first part conditions for the validity of  Qasâmah has been elaborated, while in the second part its process has been discussed with elaborate opinions  of jurists  regarding taking of  oath, as some of them opine that  the  heirs of the slain  have to take oath, mentioning name of the killer,  while others say  oath will be taken by the defendants that they  didn’t kill him , Both these opinions  have been discussed by producing arguments of  the both sides. While in the third part the issue of Qisâs and Diyat has been discussed as according to some jurists the Qasâmah entails Qisâs while other say that it entails Diyat only; arguments of both sides have been discussed in detail.