bstituted temporarily in place
of imprisonment for want of a well-organized system of jails.]

Sir W. Muir continues:--"On reflection, Mahomet appears to have felt
that this punishment exceeded the bounds of humanity. He accordingly
promulgated a Revelation, in which capital punishment is limited to
simple death or crucifixion. Amputation of the hands and feet is,
however, sanctioned as a penal measure; and amputation of the hands is
even enjoined as the proper penalty for theft, whether the criminal be
male or female. This barbarous custom has accordingly been perpetuated
throughout the Mahometan world. But the putting out of the eyes is not
recognized among the legal punishments."[260]

These alternative punishments were prescribed for the heinous crimes of
highway robbery, dacoity, and theft by house-breaking. They were (i)
capital punishment, (ii) amputation, and (iii) banishment (Sura, v, 37,
42), according to the circumstances of the case. The last two were of a
temporary nature substituted for imprisonment for want of an organized
system of jails and prisons. When the Commonwealth was in its infancy,
the troubles of the invasions and wars of the aggressive Koreish and
their allies had left neither peace nor security at Medina to take such
administrative measures as to organize a system of building, guarding,
and maintaining jails, their inmates and their establishments. As soon
as jails were established in the Mohammadan Commonwealth, amputation and
banishment gave way to imprisonment. The prisoners of war, not being
criminals, used to be made over by Mohammad to some citizens of Medina,
as in the case of the prisoners of the battle of Badr, to keep them in
their houses as guests, on account of the want of prisons; but as for
the other criminals--the highway robbers, dacoits, and
house-breakers--they could not be treated and entertained so hospitably.
Thus there was left no alternative for them except either to banish such
criminals, or to award them corporal punishment in the shape of
amputation.[261]

3.--_Torture of Kinana._

[Sidenote: 75. Torture of Kinana.]

It is related by the biographers "that Kinana, chief of the Jews of
Khyber, and his cousin had kept back, in contravention of their compact,
a portion of their riches. On the discovery of this attempt at
imposition, Kinana was subjected to cruel torture--'fire being placed
upon his breast till his breath had almost departed'--in the hope that
he w