Today, when I was shuffling along the pages of Yahoo, I found a moving story.
In Iran, there was a murderer, who was judged to be hanged, becasue he had killed a 19 year old youth in a street-fight back in 2007. Today, the family of the killed youth should have been given a satisfaction - blood for blood after all, but in a stunning and unexpected turn of events they did...
Nothing.
Well, not exactly nothing, but the mother of the murdered victim did halt the execution, slap the accused and then pleaded that he should be left to live. The mother's gesture left me in awe, becasue Iran is islamic, and their prophet Mohamed had approved of the 'eye for an eye' law. Even if nowadays it's thought barbaric, and used only in extreme cases, death penalty still exists. Civilized countries want to abolish it, and they had succeeded to some degree, but islamic countries are led by different hand of justice. There, blood revenges are accepted as usual practice, and so this happening is so much more unusual.
I am not a parent, but I can imagine how hard is for a mother to lose her child - one of my schoolmates had done a suicide, and it was heartbreaking to hear her ask why had her daughter done suicide when at funeral. There's always left a deep, gaping hole, no matter if the child has done suicide, been killed in self defense or in war. By all rights, this Iranian mother should have been vengeful and demand the worst of the tortures for the murderer who left her bereft of her precious child, and yet, she chose not to. She chose to show mercy, to plead for the murderer to be let go. Of course, if we wanted to be cynic, we can attribute the mercy to the public outcry of Iranian women and public who pleaded mercy for the murderer, but the last decision was still in the hands of the family of the victim's family. How easier would it be to just let the murderer pay for his misdeed, to see him hang from the gallows, and yet....
The ones we call Islamists, Mohamed's followers, the ones who still have such a strict code, they have spoken out, declaring mercy. What does that say about us, Christians, who are sometimes squabbling about the tiniest of things? It makes me ashamed that Christianity propagates mercy, and yet, it's so rarely shown. Our greatest feast is nearing, and instead of contemplating the mercy we were gifted with, we contemplate chocolate eggs, what we will eat and so on and so forth! For Islamists, our feast means nothing, so it's even more amazing they have done the act of mercy in the days that follow to the Easter.
How different would the world be, if the people, who asked to release a murderer, would have asked for releasing Jesus? It's illogical, that the crowd would rather have had a certified wrongdoer released than an innocent man. If we shall believe the Bible, that was intended to happen and yet, it makes for a bitter taste in the mouth, reading about such travesty.
Was it wrong to show a mercy to the killer? Cynics would say yes. Jesus would say no. He was the one who advocated for mercy, even for his enemies. One old proverb says, that eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Sometimes, mercy isn't the right answer. However, there are moments when it's a saving grace that resonates within the sinner's soul. And I believe that this little act of mercy resonated within the murderer's soul. There's not many things that could affect the man so hard as to escape the sure death, even more so, if by mercy.
We all are innocent and sinners at the same time. We can abide by the code of revenge or the code of mercy. It's our decision which one we will chose, and for me, I am glad this one family has shown that despite the pain and adversity, it's still possible to chose mercy. And for that, I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you, Samereh Alinejad. Thank you, Abdolgani Hosseinzadeh. Thank you, little daughter. May you be blessed.
Eirenei
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