وَٱلسَّارِقُ وَٱلسَّارِقَةُ فَٱقْطَعُوٓا۟ أَيْدِيَهُمَا جَزَآءًۢ بِمَا كَسَبَا نَكَٰلًا مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
Commentary:
In this verse the words, the man who steals, have been put before the words, the woman who steals, because stealing is more common among men than among women, while in 24:3 the word fornicatress precedes the word fornicator because the guilt of fornication is generally more easily proved against women than against men. This arrangement of words shows that there exists not only an intelligent order in the verses of the Quran, as shown elsewhere, but also an intelligent order in its words as well.
The punishment prescribed for a thief in this verse may appear to be too severe in the sight of those who are swayed by false sentiments. But the experience of the world shows that punishment, if it is to be deterrent, should be severe and exemplary. It is better to be severe to one and save a thousand than to be indulgent to all and ruin many. The God of Islam would not make Muslims spoilt children. When Islam was in power, there were very few cases of the cutting-off of the hands of thieves for the obvious reason that in view of the deterrent punishment prescribed by Islam there were very few cases of theft. Nowadays, however, when false sentiment prevails, thieves are given a light punishment, with the result that cases of theft are appallingly on the increase. He is certainly not a good surgeon who hesitates to amputate a rotten limb and thereby destroys the whole body.
As for the definition of the word ید (hand) ‘Ali, Son-in-law and Fourth Successor of the Holy Prophet, holds that only the fingers of a thief are to be cut off (Ma‘ani, vol. ii, p. 304); while most scholars are of the view that the hand is to be cut off at the wrist.
Theologians differ as to the least amount of money or property stolen for which the prescribed punishment is to be inflicted. Imam Abu Hanifah held it to be ten dirhams, while Imam Malik and Imam Shafi‘i considered three dirhams or a quarter of a dinar to be the least amount, dirham and dinar being old silver and gold coins respectively. Both the above views are based on different interpretations of the sayings of the Holy Prophet.
A dirham or a drachm (dram) is believed to be one-sixteenth part of an oz. in avoirdupois weight or one-eighth part of an ounce in apothecaries weight, while a dinar is equal to 71 and a half barley-corns (Lane and New Standard Dictionary).
Whereas in this verse the words the man who steals have been put before the words the woman who steals because stealing is more common among men than among women, in 24:3 the word fornicatress precedes the word fornicator because the guilt of fornication can more easily be proved against women than against men. This arrangement of words shows that there exists not only an intelligent order in the verses of the Qur’an, as shown elsewhere, but also an intelligent order in its words. The punishment prescribed for stealing may appear to be too severe. But human experience shows that punishment, if it is to be deterrent, should be exemplary. It is better to be severe to one and save a thousand than to be indulgent to all and ruin many. He certainly is a good surgeon who does not hesitate to amputate a rotten limb to save the whole body. In the heyday of Islam there were extremely rare cases of the cutting of hands of thieves because the punishment prescribed was deterrent and was p