In memory of Ahmad Qabel, a diligent thinker, who spent many years in prison and eventually became ill due to the pressures and issues of his imprisonment, and passed away to the eternal realm. Ahmad Qabel, who had received a certificate of diligence from Ayatollah Montazeri, became a pioneer of rational religion with an inward-looking and innovative approach within the framework of traditional diligence. He raised new discussions and opened new doors that can be very useful and effective for researchers of religion and jurisprudence from any perspective.

Ahmad Qabel wrote several books in line with his legal perspective, one of which is a book called “Punishments in the Muhammadan Law”. This book, which is the result of years of his research in the field of criminal law, was published in July 2013 and due to the impossibility of publishing it within the country, it was published online by a publishing house with the same name as his information website (Rational Sharia), in 342 pages.

This book, which is the tenth volume of Ahmad Qabel’s collection of works, consists of three parts and an appendix.

The first section consists of short articles written in the field of issues such as “judgment”, “principle of innocence”, “murder of missing persons”, “temporary detention” and “unlawful confession”.

Ahmad has discussed the general topic of “apostasy” in the second section and after mentioning an introduction, he has examined topics such as “right to life”, “involuntary belief”, “apostasy in the Quran”, “disbelief”, “denial and rejection” and “doubt”. He then moves on to two categories and discusses narrations on this subject. In the following section titled “Not every non-believer or non-Muslim is a disbeliever”, he discusses the topic of disbelief and then expands the discussion to the issue of “polytheism”. He then brings up the topic of “retaliation in kind” and presents his own opinion as well as the opinion of his teacher, Ayatollah Montazeri, on apostasy and concludes this section by discussing three topics: “extensive diligence”, “human nature” and “right in jurisprudence”.

The author of the book “Punishments in the Muhammadan Law” discusses the issue of “stoning” in the third section, which is essentially the final section of the book. Through the “examination of the ruling of stoning”, he delves into the “definition of stoning in Arabic” and the “history of the ruling of stoning”. He then critiques the claim of the descent of the verse of stoning and brings up the issue of “abrogation”. In the end, he also critiques and discusses related topics by examining the ruling of stoning in narrations.

But this book also has appendices that show the author, as well as the publisher and editor of the book, do not believe in discussing matters in a monologue and value criticisms. The appendices of this book are a chapter of criticisms and the reader can read the criticisms of “Mehdi Khalaji” and “Hassan Rezaei” in this section and then, by knowing the author’s claim and the critics’ main points, can understand and grasp the topics presented in this book.

Criticism and critics are a rare field among Iranian intellectuals, and even rarer are those who can provide valuable criticism to the owners of opinions. Perhaps this book can also be considered a pioneer in this regard, at least for those who are interested in discussions in this field.

Book Name: Penal Laws in the Muhammadan Shari’a

Author: Ahmad Qabel

Publication date: July 2013

Publisher: Shariati Rational