Muslim doctors must fully support Sharia laws, says i-Medik, and that includes amputation of hands for theft, as per the Qur’an: “As for the thief, the male and the female, amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed as a deterrent from Allah” (5:38).
Ground Zero Mosque Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf once said this about Sharia’s compatibility with the U.S. Constitution: “The only truly clashing area is the penal code, and no Muslim has the intention of introducing that to America. The penal code is the area that people in the Western world are worried about — but these are things that aren’t even observed today in most of the Muslim world. Apart from the Taliban and a few places like that, where do you see this happening?” Malaysia.
Meanwhile, the renowned scholar of Sharia Reza Aslan has said: “There’s really no such thing as just Sharia, it’s not one monolithic Continuum – Sharia is understood in thousands of different ways over the 1,500 years in which multiple and competing schools of law have tried to construct some kind of civic penal and family law code that would abide by Islamic values and principles, it’s understood in many different ways…” 1,500 years! That would take us back to the year 514 — so apparently Aslan thinks that Sharia predates Islam, which according to the canonical view came into being nearly 100 years after that, in 610, when Muhammad supposedly received his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. Anyway, Aslan is also wrong about Sharia being so amorphous as to defy characterization. Everywhere it is implemented today, and everywhere that it has been implemented historically, it has looked pretty much the same — as we see again in the form of Sharia that i-Medik is demanding Malaysian doctors obey.
“Medical association disrespected Muslims over amputations under hudud, says group,” Malay Mail Online, April 27, 2014 (thanks to Halal Pork Shop):
KUALA LUMPUR, April 27 — The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has disrespected Muslims and Muslim doctors by threatening to axe doctors who perform amputations under hudud, according to Muslim medical practitioners’ group i-Medik.
Muslim doctors have sworn to an Islamic doctor’s oath which also binds them to Islam as a way of life and the implementation of Islamic laws including hudud, it added.
“A Muslim doctor performs his task according to the Islamic medical doctor’s oath, which fully supports Islam as a way of life, and this includes fully supporting Shariah laws,” i-Medik chairman Prof Dr Azmi Md Nor said.
His message was carried on Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia’s (Isma) website. i-Medik is allied to Isma.
Dr Azmi did not specify which Islamic oath he was referring to, and how it differs with the Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors.
The Hippocratic Oath states, among others, that doctors must never do harm to anyone, and must do what is best for their patients.
According to the group, MMA had been hasty in its warning and does not understand the controversial Islamic penal code.
“If MMA does not agree with hudud suggestion for Kelantan, it cannot make hudud as a joke for the 63.1 per cent Muslims in Malaysia,” warned Dr Azmi.
On Thursday, the MMA vowed it will seek to disqualify surgeons who perform the unethical amputations on criminals convicted under hudud in Kelantan.
Datuk Dr NKS Tharmaseelan, the MMA president, criticised the Kelantan government’s plans to have surgeons to perform amputations on criminal offenders convicted under the strict Islamic penal code.
As the World Health Organisation (WHO) has told doctors not to be a witness or certify the whipping and caning of criminals, Tharmaseelan said the amputation of criminals’ limbs would be even more “serious”.
Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said this week that the state is considering engaging the service of surgeons in performing amputation on offenders.
In Islamic jurisprudence, “hudud” covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape and sodomy. Punishments for the crimes are severe, including amputation, flogging and death by stoning.