Epigraph:

Every human life is precious and of infinite value. Killing one is like triggering a genocide. (Derived from Al Quran 5:33)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

October 2, 2015

President Barack Obama addressed the nation for the 15th time in response to a mass shooting that’s occurred during his presidency on Thursday, saying the country has become numb to them and calling on the American people to officially declare that enough is enough.

The President spoke from the James Brady Press Briefing Room in the aftermath of a shooting on an Oregon community college campus that has left at least 10 dead and 7 wounded, markedly tense and angered by the fact that he was once again addressing the nation on the issue of gun violence.

“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine,” Obama said. “We’ve become numb to this.”

Obama began by expressing condolences for the families, like he’s had to do in the wake of tragedies in Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; and Fort Hood, Texas.

Every time such tragedies happen many start debating gun control laws in USA.

Controlling guns may provide a short term solution, but, the real solution is impressing the sacredness and infinite value of human life on every person.  Here, the Holy Quran comes to our rescue by condemning the very first recorded murder in human history, by Kane and defining the sacredness of every human life in the following verse, paraphrased as the epigraph for this article:

We prescribed for the children of Israel that whosoever killed a person — unless it be for killing a person or for creating terrorism in the land — it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and whoso saved a life, it shall be as if he had given life to all of mankind.  (Al Quran 5:33)

Other Scriptures do not rise to such clarity on abomination of a murder and virtue of saving a life.

The clear understanding of dignity of human life is eroded, when pro-war lobby in USA promotes wars on small excuses and sometimes faulty intelligence.  The pro-life message especially becomes confused when we label dying of civilians in aerial bombings, as collateral damage.

Promoting peace and order outside our borders will also promote human dignity within the borders of our country, USA.

Some think that the key to solving this problem is providing mental health, which would help, but, may not solve the problems significantly, as psychological problems effect a very large proportion of the population and many may go undetected or may not be adequately or completely treated.

Key is mass education.  David Brooks of the New York Times, is on the same track, when he writes:

But the revulsion aroused by beheading is mostly a moral revulsion. A beheading feels like a defilement. It’s not just an injury or a crime. It is an indignity. A beheading is more like rape, castration or cannibalism. It is a defacement of something sacred that should be inviolable.

But what is this sacred thing that is being violated?

Well, the human body is sacred. Most of us understand, even if we don’t think about it, or have a vocabulary to talk about it these days, that the human body is not just a piece of meat or a bunch of neurons and cells. The human body has a different moral status than a cow’s body or a piece of broccoli.

We’re repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence. The human head and body don’t just live and pass along genes. They paint, make ethical judgments, savor the beauty of a sunset and experience the transcendent. The body is material but surpasses the material. It’s spiritualized matter.

This is what we need to some how convey to every human being.

The Holy Quran describes the very first recorded murder by one of the sons of Adam:

And relate to them truly the story of the two sons of Adam, when they each offered an offering, and it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other. The latter said, ‘I will surely kill thee.’ The former replied, ‘Allah accepts only from the righteous.

‘If thou stretch out thy hand against me to kill me, I am not going to stretch out my hand against thee to kill thee. I do fear Allah, the Lord of the universe.’

…

But his mind induced him to kill his brother, so he killed him and became one of the losers.

Then Allah sent a raven which scratched in the ground, that He might show him how to hide the corpse of his brother. He said, ‘Woe is me! Am I not able to be even like this raven so that I may hide the corpse of my brother?’ And then he became regretful. (Al Quran 5:28-32)

Cain had killed Abel in the heat of the moment, but, as soon as he realized his inadequacy, by not even being as smart as a raven, guilt of his horrendous crime set in.

It was after describing this incident that the Quran puts its pro-life message and its description of infinite value of human life, as quoted above as epigraph, and not only links its message to the very first prophet Adam and his progeny, but also to Judaism and Christianity, by saying that we gave the message of sacredness of human life to the Israelites, which is a Quranic style to stress that this is now an eternal message not only for the Muslims, but for the whole of humanity.

The worth of human life had also become focus of attention, after millions had been slaughtered like cattle in WWII.

Dr.  Andrew Conway Ivy was appointed by the American Medical Association as its representative at the 1946 Nuremberg Medical Trial for Nazi doctors.  By 1945 he was probably ‘the most famous doctor in the country.’  He wrote, “Only in a moral world, a world of responsibility, can man be free and live as a human being should.

Men are truly equal and free only as creatures of God, because only as the children of God and only in the sight of God and ultimate moral law are men truly equal.”  In the Nuremberg trial he struggled with the question that if man-made law is the sole source of basic human rights, why condemn the Nazi assault on Jews, Gypsies, Poles, and politi­cal enemies; and having shaken by this perplexing trial he concluded:

If God and the ultimate moral law are denied, there can be no absolute argument against slavery, against ‘might makes right’ and man’s greedy exploitation of man. If human beings have no absolute intrinsic value, no absolute intrinsic freedom of decision, no absolute liberty, no absolute duties, they possess only extrinsic value and may be used as chattels, slaves or serfs by those who have the intelligence and power.

It is in Quranic definition of infinite value of human life and the accountability of every killer, in the hereafter, even those who may be suicidal that we will find remedies for this epidemic of mass shootings, which have happened already 45 times during 2015, in USA, with three months to go.

Which worldly law can deter someone who is suicidal?

The Quran comes to our rescue, by suggesting accountability of every killer, in the hereafter:

And those who call not on any other God along with Allah, nor kill a person that Allah has forbidden except for just cause, nor commit adultery (or fornication), and he who does that shall meet with the punishment of sin.

Doubled to him will be the punishment on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein disgraced, except those who repent, and believe and do good deeds; for as to these, Allah will change their evil deeds into good deeds; and Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful. (Al Quran 25:69-71)

Humans are motivated by two levers, reward and punishment and the Quran has used both carrot and stick to establish human dignity and law and order in human societies.

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