Salaam,
In "An Exchange on God's Law relating to Messengers," you write:
"In my opinion, if the referred directive were merely a punishment for breach of contract, then only the culprits would have been subjected to this punishment. Women, children and all those men who were not directly involved in the breach of contract would not have been subjected to this punishment."
Do you imply that polytheist children were subjected to the punishment of death along with their rejecting parents? Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I gathered from your articles that the reason for which the mushrikeen were killed was that they were "themselves witnesses of their rejection [of the truth]." The punishment is just if the ones punished are adult men and women, but how could children, who have not reached the level of mental maturity required to distinguish between truth and untruth, be killed along with them? In your article titled "The Fate of Children on the Day of Judgment," you write:
"Children who die before reaching the age of mental maturity shall obviously not deserve to be punished for their mistakes - whether in adhering to any beliefs or in adopting any practices. The Qur'an is very clear in this respect that only those who reject the truth (Kafir), after the truth has become completely apparent to them, shall be put to punishment in the hereafter. It, therefore, seems far from the concept of mercy and justice that a child be put to punishment."
If this is true, how could the Prophet (pbuh), his companions, and followers kill the children of the kaafir? Please clarify as soon as possible. Thank you.
AnswerThe word "children" was an erroneous addition on my part. I have corrected the statement from the referred response by deleting "children". Thank you for pointing out the error.
