Beheadings and Islam

Beheadings have a long and storied tradition throughout human history, writes Theodore Dalrymple. But radical Islamists are the only modern practioners of this particular form of execution.

But is beheading Islamic? Clearly it is not uniquely so, or it would have been unknown elsewhere, which is certainly very far from the case. Nevertheless, in the modern world at least, beheading seems to be largely the prerogative of people acting in the name of Islam. This is a sociological fact, whatever the doctrinal justification for it. But is beheading permitted or enjoined or forbidden by true Islam?

Someone unversed in classical Arabic is, of course, dependent on translations, but translations of the very same verse of the Koran that is relevant to the question vary so much that it is impossible to be sure what the verse really means. Some say that the verse means only that the neck of an enemy may be struck, and that this by no means entails that he may be killed; others that his throat can be cut, à la Theo van Gogh, but that he cannot be decapitated; others again that beheading is permitted, but only under the strictest juridical control, and that freelance beheading is certainly not permitted in Islam. It seems to me that a scholar could devote a lifetime to the question, and not come up with a definitive answer.

But the very terms of the debate are the most significant thing about it, and demonstrate the lack of, as well as the burning need for, an Islamic Enlightenment. For the assumption behind the debate is that the answer to the question, “Can people taken more or less at random, who are however members of a class or nation perceived to be an enemy of Islam, rightly be beheaded?” is to be found somewhere in the Koran or the Hadith, and nowhere else. Original thought is unnecessary, since the answer to every question has already been given, if only we are diligent enough to find it in irreproachable texts. If the Koran or the Hadith says that such beheading is right, it is right; if it says it is wrong, it is wrong. If Mohammed says we can cut off people’s heads whenever we choose, then we can; if he doesn’t, then we can’t. Compared with this, even the most literal-minded Bible fundamentalist in the West lives, de facto at least, like the child of Voltaire, for even such a fundamentalist probably wouldn’t dare justify decapitation as a policy by reference to David and Goliath. And if by any chance he did, he would rightly be laughed at by his fellow citizens.