George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)
and the freeing of a captive: but if a man be not able to do this, he is to fast two months together, by way of penance 1. The fine for a man’s blood is set in the Sonna at an hundred camels 2; and is to be distributed among the relations of the deceased, according to the laws of inheritances: but it must be observed, that tho’ the person slain be a Moslem, yet if he be of a nation or party at enmity, or not in confederacy with those to whom the slayer belongs, he is not then bound to pay any fine at all; the redeeming a captive being, in such case, declared a sufficient penalty 3. I imagine that Mohammed, by these regulations, laid so heavy a punishment on involuntary manslaughter, not only to make people beware incurring the same, but also to humour, in some degree, the revengeful temper his countrymen, which might be with difficulty, if at all, prevailed on to accept a lighter satisfaction. Among the Jews, who seem to have been no less addicted to revenge than their neighbours, the man-slayer who had escaped to a city of refuge was obliged to keep himself within that city, and to abide there till the death of the person who was high priest at the time the fact was committed, that his absence and time might cool the passion and mitigate the resentment of the friends of the deceased: but if he quitted his asylum before that time, the revenger of blood, if he found him, might kill him without guilt 4; nor could any satisfaction be made for the slayer to return home before the prescribed time 5.
Of theft.
Theft is ordered to be punished by cutting off the offending part, the hand 6; which, at first sight, seems just enough: but the law of Justinian, forbidding a thief to be maimed 7, is more reasonable; because stealing being generally the effect of indigence, to cut off that limb would be to deprive him of the means of getting his livelihood in an honest manner. The Sonna forbids the inflicting of this punishment, unless the thing stolen be of a certain value. I have mentioned in another place the further penalties which those incur who continue to steal, and of those who rob or assault people on the road 9.
Of retaliation.
As to injuries done to men in their persons, the law of retaliation, which was ordained by the law of Moses 10, is also approved by
