Is the Thief’s Hand Cut Off According to the Quran?

It is said that verse 38 of Surah Al-Ma'idah commands that the thief’s hand be cut off. Let us look at this verse. Is it really so? We will begin examining the verse from the end.

وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُواْ أَيْدِيَهُمَا جَزَاء بِمَا كَسَبَا نَكَالاً مِّنَ اللّهِ وَاللّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ

جَزَاء
cezaen; means recompense.

بِمَا كَسَبَا
Bima keseba; because of what they did.

نَكَالاً
Nekalen; as a deterrent.

مِّنَ اللّهِ
Min Allahi; means from Allah.

So we can give this part of the verse a meaning as follows:

”(This is) a method of deterrence prescribed by Allah in recompense for what they did.” So what is this punishment and for whom is it?

Let us look at the beginning of the verse;

وَالسَّارِقُ
Ve es sariku; the male thief.

وَالسَّارِقَةُ
Ve es sarikatu; the female thief.

فَاقْطَعُواْ
Fe ikteu; cut.
In fact we need to talk about this word, but we will do that later.

أَيْدِيَهُمَا
Eydiye Huma, here is the crucial point. Huma occurring in the verse means ‘of the two of them’, and it means cut the eyd of the male thief and the female thief, of the two of them. So what is eyd?

Eyd is a homonymous word in Arabic. One meaning is ”power, strength” and the other meaning is ”hands”. So let us consider both possibilities and try to understand the verse. This word may be a singular verbal noun from the verb eyidi. If it is accepted that it is singular and comes from the verb eyidi, it means strength, power.
There are the following examples of its use in this way in the Quran.

Here the word EYD is used in the meaning of power, strength.

Here too EYD is used in the meaning of power, strength.

In these three verses too EYD is used in the meaning of power. So it is possible for us to give the verse the meaning: cut the power of the male thief and the female thief in recompense for what they did.

But let us not decide on EYD right away; let us also look at the second meaning of this word, that is, the meaning HANDS. First let us give this information. In Arabic, in addition to singularity and plurality, there is one more separate form for two things. This is called tesniye.

YED; One hand.
YEDA; Two hands.
EYD; Means hands, three or more hands.

Since a person does not have three hands, even if we accept that the word is used in the meaning of hands, we need to take this as figurative. We will look at the grammatical detail, but first let us make this clear.
We said that if EYD means hands we need to take it as figurative. So has hand ever been used in a figurative sense in the Quran?

In the Quran, hand occurs in singular, dual and plural form 120 times in 110 verses. And only 30 of these mean a real, physical hand. The others are figurative. Let us look right away at two examples in the surahs in which the hand-cutting verse occurs.

In this verse it is clear that the word eyd, hands, is used figuratively.

Here too the words yed, hand, and yeda, two hands, are used in a figurative sense.

Let us repeat. Eyd means power or hands. If what is said with eyd in the verse is hands and not power, since this word expresses at least three hands, and since a person cannot have three hands, what is meant is figurative. Here it is required that the thief’s power be cut. Here the following objection may be made:

‘Fine, but the verse does not speak of one thief; if it had said cut the hands of the thief, that could have been so. But it says cut the hands of the two of them. Since two people have four hands, real hand-cutting may be what is told.’

This claim is wrong. It is like this: ‘Huma’ is a pronoun. It points to two people. These two people are the male thief and the female thief occurring at the beginning of the verse. It means cut the hands of both of them. Huma gives the word this meaning. Since hands in Arabic start from three, it is not possible for these hands to be understood as biological hands. It is definitely understood figuratively. Up to here we have dwelt enough on the word eyd. Now let us look at the other word, which is at least as important as this concept, the verb ‘cutting’:

The word occurring in the verse and translated into Turkish as ‘to cut’ is ‘KataA ( قطع )’. Although this word means to cut, in the Quran it is most of the time not used in the meaning of physical cutting. KataA occurs in the Quran in 18 more places apart from this verse. And in 16 places it is evident that it is definitely not used in the meaning of physical cutting. Its use in the other two places is open to interpretation. It may have been used for figurative cutting or physical cutting. Now let us look at these verses.

1- وَيَقْطَعُونَ مَا أَمَرَ اللَّهُ بِهِ أَن يُوصَلَ
They cut what Allah has commanded to be joined. ( Surah Al-Baqarah, 27)

2-لِيَقْطَعَ طَرَفًا مِّنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ
He cuts a part of those who disbelieve. ( Surah Al-Imran, 127)

3- فَقُطِعَ دَابِرُ الْقَوْمِ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُواْ
The rear of the wrongdoing community is cut in this way. ( Surah Al-An'am, 45)

4- وَقَطَعْنَا دَابِرَ الَّذِينَ
We cut the rear of those people. ( Surah Al-A'raf, 72)

5- وَيَقْطَعَ دَابِرَ الْكَافِرِينَ
And He is cutting the rear of the disbelievers. ( Surah Al-Anfal, 7)

6-وَلاَ يَقْطَعُونَ وَادِيًا
Every valley they cut (crossed) ( Surah At-Tawbah, 121)

7-وُجُوهُهُمْ قِطَعًا مِّنَ اللَّيْلِ مُظْلِمًا
Their faces dark (as) a cut of the night.. (Surah Yunus, 27)

8-بِقِطْعٍ مِّنَ اللَّيْلِ
In a cut of the night. ( Surah Hud, 81)

9-وَفِي الأَرْضِ قِطَعٌ
Cuts of land ( pieces) (Surah Ar-Ra'd, 4)

10-وَيَقْطَعُونَ مَآ أَمَرَ اللّهُ بِهِ أَن يُوصَلَ
They cut what Allah has commanded to be united. ( Surah Ar-Ra'd, 25)

11-بِقِطْعٍ مِّنَ اللَّيْلِ
In a cut of the night. ( Surah Al-Hijr, 65)

12-مَقْطُوعٌ مُّصْبِحِينَ
Those who reach the morning will be cut (their lineage). (Surah Al-Hijr, 66)

13- بِسَبَبٍ إِلَى السَّمَاء ثُمَّ لِيَقْطَعْ
Let him cut the means he extended to the sky. ( Surah Al-Hajj, 15)

14- قَاطِعَةً أَمْرًا
To cut the matter. ( Surah An-Naml, 32)

15- وَتَقْطَعُونَ السَّبِيلَ
They are cutting the roads. ( Surah Al-Ankabut, 29)

16-لَّا مَقْطُوعَةٍ
(The blessings of paradise) are not cut. ( Surah Al-Waqi'ah, 33)

Here in these 16 verses it is clear that kataA is not used in the meaning of physical cutting.

17-ثُمَّ لَقَطَعْنَا مِنْهُ الْوَتِينَ
Then We would cut the revelation from him. ( Surah Al-Haqqah, 46)

18-مَا قَطَعْتُم مِّن لِّينَةٍ
You cut from the palm tree. ( Surah Al-Hashr, 5)

However, in the verses ‘Then We would cut the revelation from him and ‘you cut from the palm tree, kataA may be understood as physical cutting.

Since kataA in the Quran mostly tells of non-physical cutting, the mere use of this word shows that it is more correct for us to understand the verse as cutting the power and not cutting the hand. For in the Quran, QaTTaA, the form of the word with shadda, is used as physical cutting. In particular, the verses that speak of cutting the hand have come with the word QaTTaA. Let us look at these.

In verse 31 of Surah Yusuf it is told that the women, admiring the handsomeness of Prophet Joseph and becoming excited, cut their hands with fruit knives. The verb used here for cutting their hands is QaTTaA. Moreover, it is evident that the women did not cut off and sever their hands.

لأُقَطِّعَنَّ أَيْدِيَكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُم مِّنْ خِلاَفٍ ثُمَّ لأُصَلِّبَنَّكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
(Pharaoh) “I will cut your hands and your feet crosswise, then I will hang you all.” (Surah Al-A'raf, 124)

In this verse there is the threat Pharaoh made to the magicians who believed without his permission. Here the cutting and severing of hands is spoken of, and the word used is QaTTaA. So the fact that the word occurring in the verse is kataA, used for cutting figurative notions, and is not QaTTaA, used in the meaning of scratching the hand and cutting off and severing, proves once again that what must be cut is not the physical hand but the power.

Let us give the meaning of the verse and look at how such a clear meaning has not been seen until now, and at how and why the verse has been understood as cutting the hand in the literal sense.

In fact there is no need to tell at length how this verse has been understood as literally cutting the thief’s hand. The only reason for the misunderstanding is the narrations fabricated in the name of our Prophet. (Allah knows best)