"The indemnity for the death or injury of a woman is one-half the indemnity paid for a man. The indemnity paid for a Jew or Christian is one-third the indemnity paid for a Muslim. The indemnity paid for a Zoroastrian is one-fifteenth that of a Muslim." -- 'Umdat al-Salik, o4.9"Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution...Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash....Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim...then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain...Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed....Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them." -- Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Four Sudan Islamists to hang for US diplomat murder," from AFP, October 12 (thanks to James):
KHARTOUM -- A Sudanese court sentenced four Islamists to death for a second time on Monday for the murder of a US diplomat and his driver in Khartoum last year.
The sentencing came after the mother of John Granville, who worked with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the wife of driver Abdel Rahman Abbas both demanded the men be executed.
Granville and Abbas were returning from a New Year's celebration in 2008 when the gunmen opened fire on their car, riddling them both with bullets.
"The murder of a person is as illegal from the point of view of shariah (Islamic law) as it is in Sudanese criminal law," the judge, Said Ahmed al-Badri, said when announcing the sentence.
The court had condemned the men to death in June for the New Year's Day murders of Granville and Abbas but the sentences were cancelled in August after Abbas's father forgave the men.
Under Islamic law, the victim's family has the right to forgive the murderer, ask for compensation or demand execution.
Granville's mother, Jane Granville, at the time had asked for the men's execution but her letter was rejected because it was not notarised. A new letter was submitted by her and read out by a court prosecutor on Sunday.
On Monday, Abbas's wife appeared before the court to demand the death penalty for the four convicts.
One of the defendants, Mohammed Osman Yusef, shouted after sentencing: "You cannot killed a Muslim because he killed a Christian."
Dressed in a traditional white robe, the bearded Yusef, a former military officer, also accused the United States of killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Islamic law condemns murder, regardless of the nationality or religion (of the victim," the judge said. Some Muslim scholars say a Muslim can be punished, but not executed, for killing a non-Muslim.
The judge added that according to Islamic law Granville was a "dhimmi" in Sudan, referring to the status of non-Muslims in an Islamic state that affords them protection and a waiver from army service, in return for a tax.
Sudanese law does not recognise non-Muslims in the country as dhimmis....
It said the murder was in response to attempts to raise the banner of Christianity over Sudan, the largest country in Africa. Federal Bureau of Investigation officers from the United States had helped to investigate the killings which sent shockwaves through the sizeable Western community in Khartoum, a city usually considered one of the safest in Africa.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iJB8rdf2xnO7zqzrd56X8ugOawjQ
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