thereby—even the criminal himself—and so that anyone contemplating such wrongdoing will keep away from it. Among those deterrents is the amputation of the thief’s hand.

This aggressor has abandoned the honorable, lawful means of earning that Allah has permitted—ways that benefit both him and society—and has brazenly seized other people’s property, alarming and terrorizing them. A fitting penalty, therefore, is that his hand—the very instrument with which he carried out the crime—be cut off.

Regrettably, we have been afflicted with certain irreligious factions enamored of the sinful European legal codes—codes that have never prevented evildoers from sowing corruption in the land or from terrifying the innocent in their homes and on the highways. They are infatuated with laws that attempt to reform criminals by remedies other than those set down by Allah, remedies meant to heal both the offender and anyone whose heart harbors a similar disease. Their approach has failed; crimes and vices have only increased, for their sole response is imprisonment no matter how great the sin or how monstrous the offense.

Yet prison is a comfort to many idle miscreants: inside they enjoy food and drink, whereas outside they face hunger and unemployment.

Because the Saudi government—may Allah grant it success—rules by Allah’s law, criminal acts, especially theft, are scarce within its realm. By contrast, other nations are overrun with wrongdoing, criminal gangs, highway robbers, and marauders. May Allah bring the Muslims back to the fold of their religion and to the goodness and blessing it contains.