University of Baltimore Law Forum Volume 6 Article 4 Number 3 March, 1976 3-1976 "In The aM tter of A Murdered Person ... " The Qur'an, 2:178 T. W. Lapin Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/lf Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lapin, T. W. (1976) ""In The aM tter of A Murdered Person ... " The Qur'an, 2:178," University of Baltimore Law Forum: Vol. 6 : No. 3 , Article 4. Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/lf/vol6/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Baltimore Law Forum by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. "In The Matter of A Murdered Person ... " The Qur'im, 2: 178 by T. W. Lapin At4:30p.m. on the.18thofJune 1975 the head of Prince Faisal ibn Musa'id of Saudi Arabia was severed from his body by two strokes of the executioner's sword. [For a detailed description of the exec;ution see appendix at the end of this article.] Prince Faisal died, on March 25, 1975, as a result of his assassination of his uncle, Faisal ibn' Abd al- 'AZlz, King of Saudi Arabia. In accordance with the 1300 year-old Shari'a, the law of Islam, a murderer was made to account for his crime. Islamic law prescribes the death pen alty for four crimes: murder, highway robbery involving homicide (what we would call "felony murder"), adultery by married people, and apostasy from Is lam.