An Eye for An Eye
King Saud was petitioned one day by a woman seeking a death sentence for the man who had killed her husband. While gathering dates in a tree, it seemed, the man had fallen upon and fatally injured him.
"Was the fall intentional?" Ibn Saud inquired. "Were these men enemies?" No, the woman replied. Even so, she was bent on revenge. Indeed, despite Saud's repeated attempts to dissuade her (observing, for example, that money would serve her better than vengeance) she demanded the blood price to which she was entitled.
"It is your right to seek compensation," Ibn Saud finally declared, "and it is your right to ask for this man's life. But it is my right to decree how he shall die... You shall take this man with you immediately. He shall be tied to the foot of a palm tree and you yourself shall climb to the top of the tree and cast yourself upon him from a great height. In that way you will take his life as he took your husband's."
This was followed by a prolonged silence, finally broken by the King: "Perhaps," he said, "you would prefer after all to take the money?"
The woman was persuaded to take the money.
King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud |