Al-Yaum

IT starts with a quarrel over parking space, running red light, or an altercation of over any minor issue. Then it escalates into a fight and often reaches a level where one of the parties is murdered and sent to prison. He regrets his mistake and repents, is pardoned and his family calls for help to pay the blood money to spare him from execution.

Sadly, this is a scenario that repeats in many parts of the Kingdom. The problem is that some members in society, often family elders, are indirectly helping this phenomenon to reach a dead end without any solution. They teach their sons to take their rights by force, and ask them not be weak and not to leave their cousins alone in a fight. They even relate sarcastic tales about people who saw their cousins in a problem or in a fight and never stood by them. They mock anyone going to the police whenever there is a problem.

What people call “courage” and “answering the call for help” is actually recklessness and a sign of psychological weakness. Since the country was unified under the leadership of its founder King Abdul Aziz and his men, peace and security settled on the land and put an end to the wrong concept of chivalry. It was this idea of bravery that made people kill each other over issues that are unimportant. The true meaning of bravery was confined to defending the country and seeking its benefit.

Many of our people need to exit from the mindset of the past if they want to live a normal life in a modern environment. Here comes the role of parents, teachers and heads of tribes to explain the real meaning of bravery, which is not in picking up a fight with others over petty issues.

We need to join these efforts because murdering people, no matter what the justifications are, is a serious matter. The Holy Qur’an states, “But whoever kills a believer intentionally — his recompense is Hell, wherein he will abide eternally, and Allah has become angry with him and has cursed him and has prepared for him a great punishment.”

One of the interesting stories that I heard was about a man whose son was murdered. Tribal leaders put on their overcoats and went to the father asking for forgiveness for the killer after accepting the blood money. The father looked at them and asked them whether they actually knew the man who they came plead for. He asked them whether they knew who the person who murdered his son was or about his past deeds before coming to him asking for pardon. He told them, “He is a murderer and an addict, who was pardoned many times in the past for similar crimes. Now he killed my son. If I pardoned him and accepted the blood money, he would commit another crime. I will not pardon him for the sake of your children.”