Divine Justice in Captivity: Lessons from the Qur’an and Sunnah | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

Bismillah, alhamdulillahi, wassalatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, wa man wala ma ba'd.

In the first raka'ah I recited in Surat al-Insan the famous verse:

This is something we spoke about so many times and today we're going to mention the rulings about one of these words and lead our way to something modern and relevant. This verse came down in early Makkah, as we all know, and Allah praises the believers for sharing from their food for the miskeen, the yateem, and the prisoner. It's very interesting that in this early ayah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala praised the believers for feeding prisoners of war.

At this point in time, as Ibn Abbas said, the prisoners were mushriks. We're talking about the Quraysh having gone to war in Jahiliyyah. The war has nothing to do with Islam. The Quraysh going to war with another tribe. And they take members of this tribe and they make them prisoners in Makkah, as happens in war. And Allah says, a good believer will share his own food with a prisoner of war that has no ethnic, no religious, no even loyalty because the war is happening for something Jahili. And this shows us that our religion has guidelines even for prisoners.

Prisoners in Islam: Divine Guidelines for Humane Treatment

The first half of today's talk will be about prisoners in Islam. And then we're going to talk about something relevant that is in the news that you should all be aware of. The fact that Allah describes the mu'min as caring about POWs indicates that our Sharia has come with laws. Even in war, even when two groups are fighting each other. When you take some prisoners, there are adab. Before the UN Charter, before the Human Rights Association, before modern nation states, the Quran, the Sunnah, the Seerah have told us that when a person is captive for legitimate reason, you have to give him certain rights.

And we see this even in the Seerah in so many instances. In the Battle of Badr, Allah revealed:

O Prophet ﷺ, go talk to the prisoners and tell them. This is compassion with prisoners. You go talk to them and tell them directly. What should you tell them, Ya Rasulullah? This is words of encouragement. To whom? To people that were trying to kill you five minutes ago. To people that you were facing in a battlefield. They are attacking you. They are provoking. They are the aggressor. You are defending. Now the table has turned. You are the victors. You have taken them prisoner. Allah says:

If you have good in your hearts, whatever you have been taken from you, your humiliation, your money, don't worry. Allah will give you back more. And Allah will forgive you. Subhanallah. Moral encouragement to prisoners of war with a condition, if you have good. Yes, if you don't have good, then okay, these words don't apply to you. But can you imagine, these are prisoners who attempted to kill the Muslims, attack the Muslims, provoke the Muslims, and Allah reveals the Quran that we recite to this day. You go talk to them, Ya Rasulullah. Give them words of encouragement. Say to them, whatever has happened, whatever your losses are, don't worry. If your hearts are good, Allah will give you back even more that has been taken away. And Allah will forgive you. And Allah is Ghafoorun Raheem.

Can you imagine? Wallahi, this encouragement, moral support is not even found in the UN Charter of Human Rights. It's not found in any Declaration of Independence. Words to comfort prisoners. It's in the Quran. We recite it to this day.

Practical Examples from the Seerah

And that is why when the prisoners were taken, 70 prisoners were taken. You know in early Islam, there were no jails. So where were the prisoners kept? The Prophet ﷺ distributed prisoners to those that had houses in Medina. And every family that has somehow some space, he gave them a prisoner. And it is reported in the books of Sira, in Al-Mu'jam al-Kabir al-Tabarani, Abu Aziz ibn Umair said, I was one of those prisoners captured in the Battle of Badr. And the Prophet ﷺ handed me to some of the Ansar. And he said to them, treat your captives well. Treat your captives well.

So he says that whenever they would bring me food, I would see that they would give me the soup and the bread, and they would keep the dates for themselves. Meaning the soup and bread is the more expensive dates everybody has. Because the Prophet ﷺ said that treat them well. They would give the soup and bread, the meat if you like, the big stuff, they would give it to me. And they would just keep for themselves the dry dates and the water until I became ashamed. He is a prisoner. And he's saying, I felt ashamed that my captors are not even eating the same as me. They're sacrificing. And I would pretend I am full so that they can eat some of my own share.

And because of this treatment, many of these converts, many of these captives converted to Islam. They were prisoners in the Battle of Badr. And because they were treated so well, they flipped and they converted to Islam. The most famous example is Al-Walid, the older brother of Khalid ibn Al-Walid. Al-Walid, the older brother of Khalid, he was captured prisoner. And after he was released, he embraced Islam because of what he saw, because of the akhlaq that were given.

Quranic Guidelines for Post-Battle Treatment

And later on in Medina, when Allah revealed other verses, the Quran has verses about prisoners. The Quran has verses about prisoners of war. Allah says in Surah Muhammad that when you are fighting the enemy, then fight with all your might. Show your strength. But once you have taken them prisoner, so when you're fighting, you don't be cowardly. Yes, you are fighting to defend. You are fighting to inflict as much as you can. But once they have been taken prisoner:

Now that they are chained up and prisoners, once they are prisoners and tied up, now, if you want, when the war is finished, go ahead and free them all for nothing. And if you want, you can ransom them off. Allah says, when the battle is taking place, you fight the max you can. Once the battle is over, don't let your anger in the battle affect you after the battle. Don't let that zeal that you had fighting the enemy, now cloud you. Now that they are chained up, situation has changed. And you have the option, فَإِمَّا مَنًّا بَعْدُ وَإِمَّا فِدَاءً Either you manna, manna means you show them kindness. You let them go for free. For whatever reason, you think it is better. وَإِمَّا فِدَاءً Or you can ransom them for a price until the war finishes its harshness.

And this is why all of the scholars of Islam have agreed that the prisoner of war is to be given a number of options. As the sultan, the khalifa has a number of options. And generally speaking, the preferred option, as the Quran says, is one of these two. Which is to free them or to ransom them off to the enemy state. And we're gonna come to the issue of other options as well.

The Story of Thumama Ibn Uthal

And it is also reported in the books of Sirah Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham. They mentioned the famous incident of Thumama Ibn Uthal, who was captured a prisoner. And he was taken a captive. And the Prophet ﷺ, there was no prison, there was no jail. He had him kept in the masjid. And he himself would go and give him of his own food. The Prophet ﷺ would tell his family, our mothers, is there any food? Whatever there is, he would take it to Thumama. Thumama was a chieftain. Thumama was a very famous and a very powerful chieftain. He would give his own plate to Thumama to eat from. And he would give from his own camel the milk that would come. He would give it to Thumama Ibn Uthal.

And Thumama was so impressed that as you know the story, I have a whole lecture, you can listen to it, about Thumama and the benefits of the story of Thumama. That at the end of those three days, Thumama embraced Islam immediately. But again, notice the humanity that the Prophet ﷺ dealt with.

Detailed Rights of Prisoners

And in fact, Imam Al-Bukhari has an entire section in his sahih about the prisoners of war. And one of those chapter headings is chapter regarding the clothing of the prisoner, the cloth. And in it, he mentions this hadith that in the battle of Badr, some of the prisoners including Al-Abbas, they came almost nothing. Because the war, you know, it happens, there's blood, there's no tatters, almost naked. And the Prophet ﷺ ordered that they be given clothes. So from this, Imam Al-Bukhari derives and the Fuqaha have derived that prisoners must be clothed according to their means and status.

So much so, Harun al-Rashid famously issued a decree that all prisoners should be given two cloths, garments per year. One for the winter, one for the summer. The winter one should be thick to protect them from the cold. And the summer one should be cool and light to make it easier to deal with the heat. Famous in the Abbasid time, we know to this date.

And Ibn al-Qayyim mentions, ask for the prisoners. Sometimes the Prophet ﷺ would ransom them for wealth. Sometimes he would exchange them. Sometimes he would let them go. And in the Battle of Badr, when people couldn't afford money, he allowed some of them to teach children. And in return for teaching children, they were set free. They teach children how to read and write, they were set free.

And then he mentions, and yes, occasionally they were executed for specific crimes. And this leads us to the issue of execution that our scholars mentioned, that the default of prisoners, they are not allowed to be executed simply because they were on the other side. But if there is a particular person who has crimes from before, if there's somebody that has done what we will call war crimes before this point in time, that is possible that that person, a demonstration be given that we cannot be merciful to such a person. And this is demonstrated in the seerah a number of times that the Prophet ﷺ had specific people executed because of crimes that they had done. But this is not the default. And the default is treatment with kindness and taking care of them.

The Story of the Uqayl Prisoner

There's a very interesting story in the books of seerah that there was a tribe in their time known as Uqayl. Uqayl had launched an attack against Medina. They had killed some Muslims, raided caravans, and then taken some sahaba as prisoners, unprovoked. And so the Prophet ﷺ sent an expedition, they need to go attack them. The Uqayl was a Bedouin tribe, so they were wandering, they were not able to be attacked. But they managed to find one of the tribes of the people, one of the Uqayli people. And so they brought him back.

So when they brought him back, he was tied up and he began crying out, Ya Muhammad, Ya Muhammad ﷺ. And eventually the Prophet ﷺ came and spoke to him. And he said, why have you tied me up? So the Prophet ﷺ explained, your people have declared war against us. They have killed my companions. They have taken ghanima. And they have Muslims captive. And this is now war between us. You are going to be ransom for the Muslims that are captive. He explains his situation. This shows us that prisoners must be given their charges. They must be explained what is going on.

And once he understood, he understands. Now it's a situation between two tribes here. So he goes quiet. Then after a few hours, he began shouting, Ya Muhammad, Ya Muhammad ﷺ. So he comes again. The Prophet ﷺ comes to the masjid again. And he says, okay, I've decided to embrace Islam. So the Prophet ﷺ said, had you embraced Islam before you had been taken prisoner, this would have changed everything. As for now, your affairs with Allah, meaning you're embracing Islam, doesn't change politics. You know, this is between you and Allah now. Had you embraced before, because Uqayl was a mushrik tribe, this would have changed everything. But now, politics doesn't change.

So then he let him be. Then after a few hours, Ya Muhammad, Ya Muhammad. Three times he's calling. He's calling who? Not some guard, not some sahaba. He's calling the leader.

Divine Compassion Toward Prisoners

And the leader ﷺ goes away from his routine. He leaves the whole world's affairs. And he goes and he talks with him one-on-one. He goes, I am hungry. I am thirsty. So the Prophet ﷺ said, you have that right. He commanded food and water be given. And he said, هذه حاجتك. This is where you're taking care of your haja. This is your concerns being taken care of. Subhanallah, the prisoner calling directly to the leader. And the books of seerah mention, this is a powerful phrase, فَرَقَّ لَهُ. The Prophet ﷺ felt sorry for him. He felt compassion for him. And he gave him that food and that drink and all of these things. The point being, all of this demonstrates the reality of the prisoners being treated with kindness and compassion.

And as I said, to be fair, if a person has done crimes beyond what is normal, then yes, Islam has allowed as all countries have allowed. When you capture somebody that has destroyed entire villages and cities. When you capture somebody that has war crimes from before, that doesn't have to be treated like your private, like your soldier. And there are instances in the seerah that the Prophet ﷺ did have specific people executed. In the conquest of Mecca, everybody is forgiven. Three people are executed. Each one of them had done crimes against humanity, had done things that are more than just an average person had done. And even then there is compassion shown.

Mercy Even Toward Those Facing Execution

So for example, in the incident of Banu Qurayza. You all know the incident of Banu Qurayza. When the traitors in the Khandaq, the battle of Ahzab were captured. These traitors betrayed the cause of Islam and the punishment for treachery is execution. The books of seerah mention that the people that were going to be executed were all huddled together and standing in the sun, in the heat. It was summer time. The Prophet ﷺ said to the sahaba, don't combine the two heats on them. The heat of the sun and the heat that they're going to face from the sword. They're already tense. They're already in tension. Don't torture them by the sun. This is by the sun. They're not extra torture. Don't put them in the sun. Put them in the shade. Don't treat them like this. Even if you're going to execute them, there's no need to have them standing in the sun until that penalty is carried out.

This is phenomenal. If you think about this way before charter of human rights and how UN tells us prisoners to be treated, the Prophet ﷺ is showing compassion even to those that one would think, why should we show compassion to them?

Ali's Final Instructions

And that's why when the great companion and the cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, Ali ibn Abi Talib radiallahu anhu, when he was stabbed in Salatul Fajr by Ibn Muljim, you all know the story, right? The khariji guy, when he stabbed Ali ibn Abi Talib and the wound, the knife had poison on it and the knife reached inside of the stomach and after a day, the doctor said this wound cannot be healed, it's going to fester and die. Ali ibn Abi Talib called Hasan radiallahu anhu and he said to him, if I die because of this man, then you must do qisas on him. In other words, this is siyasa, this is wisdom. You cannot let a murder that has murdered a khalifa go unpunished. It's not mercy at this point, it's weakness. So he's being very clear, if I die because of this man, then you must do qisas. But then he said, but feed him and give him water and do not humiliate him.

I want you to think about the fact, he's about to die. Blood is coming from his stomach. He understands, he has 48 hours to live. He doesn't know but he has a day or two to live. But his mind is so precise. Ali radiallahu anhu, he says, look, you're going to have to take his life, I get it. But don't torture him. Don't humiliate him more, dragging him in the streets and slapping him. Don't do that. Be dignified. Feed him, give him water, do your trial. When it needs to be done, do the deed. End of story. Subhanallah. Again, imagine this is khalifa, Ali ibn Abi Talib with regards to the one who executed him.

The Contrast with Contemporary Injustice

And honestly, I could go on and on, give you an entire lecture about huquq, about the rights of the prisoner of Islam. Why am I talking about this? Because the reality is other people who claim to believe in God, other people who claim to be God's chosen people, seem to have no sense of the commandments of Allah when it comes to their prisoners. Forget the fact those prisoners are unjustified, even if it was justified, even if the prisoners were justified. Human dignity, the UN Charter, God's law, whichever one you want to do, requires an element of mercy and compassion and justice.

The Reality of Palestinian Prisoners

But what we are seeing from the reality of the apartheid regime of Israel with regards to how Palestinian prisoners are treated. There is no population in the world that is treated with as much injustice and contempt as Palestinian prisoners. This is something that the UN Charter, the UN Committee on Human Rights, which is an Israeli Human Rights Association, and multiple neutral organizations, Amnesty International, multiple groups that have nothing to do with the Ummah, not Muslims, have documented the sheer injustice.

Currently, I just checked today, there are over 10,000 Palestinians that are in Israeli prisons for crimes, quote unquote crimes, that are as trivial as throwing a rock or disobeying an IDF guard or walking in a zone they should not go. And around half of them have not even had a trial. There's no trial. They don't know the charges. There's no defense being done.

Palestinian prisoners do not get regular trials that all other Israelis get. They have a military tribunal in which secret evidence can be admitted, in which the testimony of an Israeli officer is given without checks and balances, in which eyewitness testimonies of Palestinians is completely neglected and ignored, in which the conviction rate is a staggering 98.5%. 98.5% of people who end up in Israeli jails, if you're Palestinian, your conviction rate is that much. And if you are Israeli, it is in the singles, double digits, whatever it might be.

Additionally, around 400 Palestinian children, children, teenagers and younger are in jail. Children, more than half of them uncharged. No crime charged. It's just they are there. Multiple human rights organizations have documented the inhumane tortures that are done within Israeli prisons. The treatment, the brutality, the food and water that is given to them, the torture that is done.

Documented Torture and Brutality

And in fact, Dr. Farhan from our community, when he came to our masjid and to other masjids and his documentaries online, when he went to Gaza, he mentions that he met a doctor, a hafidh of Quran. This is an eyewitness from him. So Dr. Farhan is interviewing the person. And you can listen to the audio and the video of Dr. Farhan. That they were torturing one of these Palestinians during the last two years. And they wanted him to confess that he belongs to a specific organization. And he wouldn't confess. So they brought him an iPad and they said to him, we are going to bomb your wife and children's home right now. And he didn't believe this would actually do this. He watched with his own eyes as the bomb came, killed his wife and children. They continued to force him to watch until his wife's body is pulled from the rubble so that he can confess to whatever they wanted him to confess to. When you have this level of torture, what will you not confess to?

Last week, there is video footage, video footage of a one-year-old child who was tortured with an iron bullet while his father was watching so that the father confesses to whatever crimes they want him to confess. Then they handed the child back to UN human rights organizations. And you see, the video is everywhere that you can see, the torture done to the one-year-old child because the torture is not working on the father. So what do they do? They bring the child to the jail and they torture a one-year-old baby so that the father confesses to whatever they want him to confess to.

The Apartheid Death Penalty Law

And then yesterday, yesterday, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, they passed a bill which is the most obvious injustice that even transgresses, trespasses, it actually transcends South African apartheid in its worst time frame. Even South Africa did not have what the Israeli parliament passed yesterday. And that is, there is literally a double system of justice. The Israeli government does not use the death penalty. For many decades, nobody has been executed in Israel for any crime. They don't have the death penalty for any crime. The last person who was executed was Adolf Eichmann in 1962, who was one of the architects of the Holocaust. They captured him, they brought him to Israel, they had a trial, and they executed him. 1962. The last person executed in Israel, 1962. They don't have execution in the charts, in the laws that they have.

Yesterday, the bill was passed. Palestinians who are charged with any crime that affects the state must be executed. Not can be. Must be executed with no chance of appeal. The sheer brutality, what this means, 15 year old kid who throws a rock, a pregnant lady who crossed a zone she shouldn't cross, for whatever reason, any person in Gaza arrested, any person in the West Bank that they believe is doing a crime against the civil order of the society, this basically means a death penalty.

And yesterday, the people who passed the bill, the worst of them, they're literally celebrating by giving sharab and high-fiving, and they're wearing a badge here of a noose hanging, like they're exulting in death to this level. And the world is just watching. Every human rights organization, the BBC, everybody's sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians. Nobody's doing anything.

The Clear Contrast and Our Response

Subhanallah, how can you even compare what Islam and the shariah to what these people have done? Lost all shred of humanity, the double-tiered justice system. If you're a Palestinian, firstly, there is no justice in the court, 98.5% conviction rate. Secondly, guaranteed, not jail, execution within 90 days. They are literally opening up blatant genocide.

And for us, inshaAllah ta'ala, we believe that this is a sign, that this is a the beginning of the end, because there is no question that such blatant injustice, it simply cannot stand. We're seeing the exponential decline of this regime, of this entity. The world despises. The world has grown sick of them. The average person, even in this country, much less Europe, has washed their hands of this entity. And it's just a few politicians who are on their payroll, and that's just a matter of time.

Fighting Back with Dignity

And realize, and with this we conclude, because their ship is sinking, because their ship is sinking, and because the world is seeing their brutality, it is because of this, that they are on an Islamophobic rampage against us. It's a clear distraction. Sharia takeover, Texas mosque, this and that. It's just distraction. To take away from this reality that we are seeing.

And it is true, in the short term, some people will be distracted. But we must persevere. We must rise up to this challenge. We must be patient, and think long term. We cannot react emotionally. We will fight this bigotry with education. We will fight this misinformation with dignity and courage. And we will inshaAllah see the end of this evil entity in our lifetimes. And we will see Allah's justice enacted on such people.

Closing Du'a

I ask Allah to allow us wisdom and to guide us to the best position to follow, and to help our brothers and sisters, especially those that are in jails in Gaza. Especially those that are still in imprisonment. And as we are making du'a, we must also still make du'a for unjust prisoners around the world. There are people that have been jailed for unjust political reasons. Scholars, ulema, mashayikh, political rulers that had some good in them. They are in jail right now. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give them sabr, to release them from jail. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to show us the victory of our brothers and sisters in Gaza over those who seek to destroy them.

Jazakumullah khair, wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Al Fatiha.