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Hands Amputation Penalty For Minor Thefts
Asselamu aleykum,
Ustaz Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (ha) said that the hand amputation penalty will not be given for the minor thefts in the Islamic law. (e.g; if someone steals some fruits from the garden of his neighbour, if someone steals the sheep or cow from the way, or if a son takes out few thousand rupees from the wallet of his father, without his permission) But, there are many hadith which seems to be ordering for hand amputations for even the minor thefts. What are the contexts of these hadith?
One of them is;The Prophet said, “Allah curses a man who steals an egg and gets his hand cut off, or steals a rope and gets his hands cut off.” Al-A’mash said, “People used to interpret the Baida as an iron helmet, and they used to think that the rope may cost a few dirhams.” (Sahih Bukhari Volume 8, Book 81, Number 774)
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Hands Amputation Penalty For Minor Thefts
updated 1 year, 7 months ago
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In the starting of the hadith the Holy Prophet (may Allah the great’s peace and blessings be upon him, his family and his companions) said “Allah curses a man who steals an egg and gets his hand cut off”, I want to know the context of this sentence of the hadith. Is this hadith really ordering for the hand amputation for stealing the egg, or I am misinterpreting it? Kindly clarify.
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Ghamidi Sahab has a complete epistemology on how to approach Quran and how to understand Hadith. Quran being Mizan gives us principles and once those principles are established then all Ahadith will be understood in the light of those principles enumerated by Quran. Therefore, when pointing out a contradiction in Ghamidi Sahab’s stance, first it needs to be established that his understanding of Quran is wrong because ahadith are not a source of any law, instead they are an application of laws contained in Quran and Sunnah. (Please also see: Discussion 80597 • Reply 80749).
Secondly, Ahadith should never be studied in isolation, there is a complete science on how to understand ahadith and one of the principles invlove studying all the variants of one particular hadith and all the relavant ahadith on one particuler topic in order to get the holistic picture as far as topic under discussion is concerned. (Please also see: Discussion 56230)
As far as the hadith posted in the question is concerned, it needs to remain clear that this fact that punishment of theft will not be implemented on minor items was so clear that one of the narrators ‘Amash‘ himself clarified that ‘Baida‘ and ‘rope‘ here do not refer to regular minor items. Even if the statement of ‘Amash‘ were to be ignored, then the wordings of hadith are condemnation of the act of theft which starts from a minor thing and ultimately leads to a major theft which eventually results in this punihsment.
Also, there are plenty of other ahadith which point to this fact that punihsmnent of theft will not be given to minor thefts, just to mention a few:
https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2585
https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:2586
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