the murderer to go unexecuted opens the door to a grave evil: people become emboldened to kill and cease to regard it with due seriousness. Yet the public interest may at times require that legal retaliation not be carried out. Thus, this Sacred Law stands between firmness and grace; it is complete and just.

Legal retaliation is not as the proponents of atheism and heresy claim when they say that it merely increases killing: if a murderer kills one person and we then kill the murderer, two people have been lost; whereas, if we do not kill the murderer, only one person has been lost. Therefore, they conclude, legal retaliation is wrong.

But we say to these people: this is one of the matters by which Allah has blinded your inner sight. Legal retaliation is life, as Allah Most High says:

“And there is life for you in legal retaliation.” [al-Baqarah 2:179]

For when a murderer knows that he will be put to death, he will not proceed with murder. Thus, if we exact legal retaliation from Zayd for his killing of Amr, Khalid will not kill Bakr; but if we were to leave him unpunished, killings would multiply.

There was a well-known saying in the Age of Ignorance, which, as they say, they would write in gold water: “Killing is more effective in preventing killing”—that is, if you kill, killing will cease. This is a fine and eloquent statement, but the wording of the Quran is vastly greater. We do not mean to compare the words of Allah Most High with human speech; rather, we wish to show that the Quran possesses the utmost eloquence. The Quranic expression is affirmative, whereas this saying is negative; and affirmation is more worthy of acceptance than negation. Moreover, the verse indicates justice in His saying, “And there is life for you in legal retaliation,” whereas the Arabs’ expression contains no indication of justice. Furthermore, the verse does not mention killing; rather, it mentions legal retaliation, which is justice and life,