Christian Martyrs Under Islam by Sahner Christian C

Author:Sahner, Christian C.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2018-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

II. QURʾANIC PUNISHMENTS AGAINST THE MARTYRS

If Umayyad and ʿAbbasid officials treated martyrs with caution and clemency before sentencing, they usually treated them with decisiveness and fury afterward. The tortures they employed were grisly and ferocious. They were designed not only to punish criminals but also to shock a public that might be tempted to mimic them. Although the punishments of the Umayyads and ʿAbbasids were unforgiving by modern standards, there was a clear method to them: in many instances, they followed the prescriptions of Islamic criminal law, which in turn were shaped by certain passages in the Qurʾan and ḥadīth.

One very detailed guide for capital punishment is the so-called Ḥirāba Verse (Q. al-Māʾida 5:33), which outlines a suite of penalties for those found guilty of ḥirāba, the crime of inciting war against God and His prophet. Khaled Abou El Fadl has argued that the ambiguity of the verse allowed for a wide array of offenses to be lumped together under the umbrella of “brigandage.”46 Among the most important of these were apostasy and blasphemy. The verse is worth quoting in full:

The recompense of those who wage war against God [yuḥāribūna ʾllāha] and His messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land [wayasʿawna fī ʾl-arḍ fasādan] is that they be killed or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides [tuqaṭṭaʿ aydīhim wa-arjuluhum min khilāfin], or they shall be expelled from the land. That shall be their degradation in this world, and in the hereafter, they shall have a terrible torment.

Medieval Muslim exegetes identified different historical contexts for the revelation of this verse.47 One leading tradition states that it was revealed when a group of shepherds complained to Muḥammad that the sedentary life in Medina was no longer to their liking.48 Therefore, the Prophet lent them several camels and his mawlā Yasār and bade them farewell into the desert. Instead of following his instructions, however, the shepherds stole the camels, killed Yasār, and apostatized from Islam. The Prophet reacted by exiling, amputating, blinding, crucifying, killing, and, according to some reports, burning them.49

During the medieval period, the Ḥirāba Verse was considered one locus classicus of Islamic penal law. Despite its prominence in Muslim legal sources, it is not clear from these texts how or even whether the verse was implemented in everyday life. Christian hagiography, however, provides underappreciated evidence that the verse was indeed used to punish religious dissidents and, what is more, that this began at an early date. The impact of the verse is clearest in the Life of Peter of Capitolias, in which Umayyad officials are shown applying an array of punishments lifted directly from the Qurʾan.50 On the first day of his torture, Peter’s tongue was removed. On the second day, his right hand and left foot were amputated, and after a day’s rest, his left hand and right foot were cut off, seemingly in accordance with the Ḥirāba Verse. Finally, he was taken outside the city and crucified. Similar punishments also befell Rogelius and Servusdei, who committed blasphemy in a mosque in Córdoba in September 852.

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