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Case of the Falsely Accused Butcher

Medina, 7^th Century

Not long after Islam’s advent in the seventh century, a type of early police force in a small Arabian town was out patrolling. Members of this patrol came across a man in the town ruins holding a blood-stained knife and standing over the body of another man who had apparently just been stabbed to death. The patrol arrested the man with the knife. Upon arrest, he immediately confessed: “I killed him.”

The suspect was brought before ʿAlī, the beloved cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad (who had died less in 632).[1] Upon hearing the defendant’s story, ʿAlī reportedly sentenced him to death, in accordance with the Islamic law of retaliation for homicide and personal injury: a life for a life.

Before the sentence was carried out, another man rushed forward, telling the executioners not to be so hasty. “Do not kill him. I did it,” he announced. ʿAlī turned to the condemned man incredulously. “What made you confess to a murder that you did not commit?” he asked. The man explained that he thought ʿAlī would never take his word over that of the patrolmen who had witnessed a crime scene wherein all signs had pointed to him as the perpetrator. In reality, the man explained, he was a butcher who had just finished slaughtering a cow. Immediately after the slaughter, he needed to relieve himself, so entered the area of the ruins, bloody knife still in hand. Upon return, he came across the dead man and stood over him in concern. It was then that the patrol encountered him. Figuring that he could not plausibly deny having committed the crime, he confessed to the “obvious” and decided to leave the matter in God’s hands.

The second man offered a corroborating story. He explained that he was the one who had murdered a man for his money and then fled upon hearing sounds of the patrol approaching. On his way out, he passed the butcher entering the area and then watched the events unfold just as the butcher had described them. Once the butcher was condemned to death, however, the second man felt compelled to step forward. He did not want the blood of two men on his hands.[2]

[1] ʿAlī was the fourth caliph according to the Sunnī account of successors to the Prophet and the first Imām in the competing Shīʿī account. He presided over criminal trials in his capacity as leader of the young Muslim community from 656–661, as had the Prophet before him.

^[2] Source: Ibrāhīm b. Hāshim al-Qummī (mid-third/ninth century), Qaḍāyā Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ed. Fāris Ḥassūn Karīm (Qum: Muʾassasat Amīr al-Muʾminīn, 1382/[2003]), 88–89, 238 (paraphrased).

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