(32) “For this reason, We ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a person—unless in retribution for another person or for spreading corruption in the land—it is as though he has killed all humanity; and whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved all humanity. Our messengers certainly came to them with clear proofs, yet even after that many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.”
Allah Most High says: “For this reason”—because of what We have mentioned in the account of Adam’s two sons: one of them killing his brother, thereby instituting killing as a precedent for those who came after him, and because the consequences of killing are dire and bring loss in this world and the Hereafter—“We ordained for the Children of Israel,” the recipients of divinely revealed scriptures, “that whoever kills a person—unless in retribution for another person or for spreading corruption in the land,” that is, without right, “it is as though he has killed all humanity.” This is because he has no moral restraint prompting him to distinguish between cases and to refrain from killing unless it is justified. Once he dares to kill a person who does not deserve to be killed, it becomes clear that, to him, there is no difference between that victim and anyone else; it depends only upon whatever his soul, which incites him to evil, urges him to do. Thus, by daring to kill him, it is as though he has killed all humanity.
Likewise, whoever saves a life—that is, spares someone and does not kill him even though his soul urges him to do so, because fear of Allah Most High prevents him from killing—has, as it were, saved all humanity. This is because the fear within him prevents him from killing anyone who does not deserve to be killed.
The verse indicates that a person may lawfully be put to death for one of two reasons:
The first is that he deliberately kills a person without right. He may then be put to death, provided that he is legally accountable, equal in legal status to the victim, and not the victim’s parent.
The second is that he spreads corruption in the land by corrupting people’s religious faith, harming their persons, or taking their property. Examples include apostate disbelievers, those who actively wage war, and advocates of religious innovations whose evil cannot be restrained except through execution. The same applies to highway robbers and others like them who attack people in order to kill them or seize their property.
“Our messengers certainly came to them with clear proofs” that left no one any excuse. “Yet many of them”—that is, many people—“even after that” decisive clarification, which left no excuse and required upright conduct in the land, “continued to commit excesses” by committing sins and opposing the messengers who came with clear proofs and compelling evidence.