What Your Weapon Says About Intent

And for.

[Silence]

This narration in the first chapter of continuing where we left off. The ninth narration is on the authority of Bakari Bakari. He narrates that the prophet sallall.aii wasallam said if two Muslims meet one another with their swords meet one another with their swords meaning in battle meet one another to fight with their swords. So here we have two things. Number one the prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam describes them as Muslims but then he says with their swords and swords here articulates intention. What do we mean by that? Meaning that a sword is not used to clobber someone. It's not used to to harm someone. It's used to kill. It's used to take life. That's what it's designed for. Therefore, the intention of these two is clear. We wouldn't have in a Muslim court a person use something a sword in our modern time, a handgun, something that is lethal, something that is intended to kill. And have them say, "Well, my intention was just to scare the person. My intention was this or that." Because as we said before the principle that taught us in he says we mentioned this a couple days ago. The principle is that intentions are only taken into consideration in ambiguous situations. Unclear situations. situations that it could be this was what the person intended or this is what the person intended. Not in a situation where there's no a situation that is explicit. Right? So for instance, let's say a person used a a a club, a billy club or a whip. Let's say this is something that doesn't usually kill, right? This is something that is used to inflict pain but not kill. Or let's say for instance in modern times a taser, a police officer using a taser for instance. Well, sometimes people die from that. It's not always. As a matter of fact, it's very rare. Or for instance, a bean bag, right? Not not at you. I'm not shooting you. a bean bag, right? A bean bag is used usually in a shotgun and it's used in in you know riot control and stuff that or let's say tear gas that's used to control crowds things this, right? Can it take life? Have these things taken life before? Yes. The human body is very frail. It can be very frail, right? And just a person can survive 10 rounds from a machine gun by some miracle, a person can also die from falling off a foottool. So if a person were to be tased, let's say, and then the person died and we were in a situation of judgment, the the officer then comes and says, "I didn't mean to kill the person. I only meant to subdue them. You know, they were acting crazy and I was just trying to get the situation under control. In this case, we would take into consideration the intention. We take into consideration his intention. Why? Because it's ambiguous. It's ambiguous. The act itself is ambiguous. Right? But let's say a person uses a handgun or or they they use a club and and it and it kills someone by accident or uses a whip that causes a wound that gets infected that later claims the person's life. Right? This is what this is ambiguous. We would take into consideration the person's intention. However, let's say a person uses a gun, a handgun, and let's say they shoot someone in the leg. I said, "Well, I was just trying to subdue them." A handgun is a lethal. Is a It is used only with the intention to kill, right? Anywhere you shoot in the body, that's what it's for. It's designed specifically for that. And so the claim of my intention is not relevant in this situation. And so the same thing here in this kind of narration he says safe a safe a a sword is used to take life. It's not used for just general fighting or you know people having small disputes or right when a person uses a sword this sword has been designed and crafted and honed and it's also been trained with to take life. So a person couldn't come and claim well I didn't intend to kill him. No, death is the is the expected result of using a sword. The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam articulates this this meaning here in this narration. Why? Because he says, Muslim.

[Silence]

Safe. And so he didn't say if two Muslims meet one another with their swords drawn and each intends to kill the other. He he didn't say that. Why? Because a sword is only used for that purpose. Just a person could survive a sword attack, right? Just you could survive a handgun attack. But that's not what it's designed for, right? That's that's an outlier. Most usually when you speak about someone that's been struck with a sword, you're speaking about a person who's dead. You're speaking about someone who's been shot with a gun. You're speaking about someone who's dead, right? And that's why in our language we use shot and dead synonymously, right? We say, well, you know, he he got shot. What's he got shot? He's dead. That's what we we mean when we say that. speaking about someone who's dead. And so the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam didn't add to this. And why do I mention this? Because in Islamic law, death, death, homicide rather, we should say, homicide, which is one human taking the life of another. Homicide is three types in the Islamic court. Okay? You have right. So you have you have homicide which is accidental homicide. Right? Because in English in in American judicial system, right, the word homicide literally means a human being taking the life of another human being. And it could be accidental homicide. It could be intentional homicide, premeditated homicide, right? Murder is only intentional. Person intended to take the life of another. Sometimes they call it manslaughter. So we have this gradation in Islamic court. So we have homicide which is accidental. So accidental homicide. We have intentional homicide and we have intentional or we have unintentional homicide. Unintentional homicide. So what these three things they have they make a difference in the ruling. They make a difference in the ruling. We have one who shoots another person with a gun. We have one who's playing with a gun and it goes off. We have another who uses a taser on someone. These are three different situations. They're not all the same. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam didn't consider them all the same. However, in this narration, we see that the prophet sallall.aii wasallam is teaching us that if a person uses a mostly lethal tool to take the life of another, unless there are some very strong evidences that this was an this this was a horrible accident, immediately this is considered to be intentional intentional homicide, murder. And if it is premeditated murder, this person is is is executed no matter what the situation. Premeditated murder is always an an execution. There is no we forgive him even if the family forgives him because premeditation and murder articulates malice and articulates a person who is out of control and needs to be protected needs society to be protected from him. So the point here is that the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam with regards to intentions we see even in the way that he speaks he is using the tool and not elaborating on the intention. If two Muslims meet one another with the swords with their swords drawn, then the killer and his victim are both in hell. Notice here he says the killer and his victim. He doesn't say and they both intended to kill each other. Because now a Muslim judge would not take into consideration a person's intention. Why? Because the sword is a lethal is a lethal weapon. It's used to take life. No one can come and say, "Well, I just meant to cut him up a little bit. I just meant to cut off an arm or a leg." Right? And you know, you hear this from people who are not acquainted with violence. For instance, people will say, "Well, you know, the the police, they should shoot him in the leg, you know, instead of shooting them in the chest or something should shoot him in the leg." It's a gun. It's designed to kill anywhere you get shot on your body. That's what it's for. This is a silly proposition. We don't have any such thing as shoot him in the leg or shoot him in the arm in the movies. This is silliness. And so the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam judges both of them in hell. Both of them. The killer and his victim in hell. We'll continue this tomorrow. Inshallahhammed. Alhamdulillah.