What do you think about someone making a mistake while crossing a road and being hit by a car? He may turn to become blind for the rest of his life, he may find his arms broken, he may loose even his life, all due to that simple mistake, and of course God can stop him making the mistake, and can prevent the crash happening, and can prevent the man becoming blind or disabled or killed, but once you read a newspaper there are lots of such crashes happening and all those disasters that you may know better, then you would think God (God of Christians, God of Jews, and God of Muslims) is unjust or rules of this life are unjust or what? We only say there are reasons and wisdoms before any happening and behind any rule of God in His religion, we should obey it just after we understood that there is a God and that this rule is certainly due to his command, however we can always try to understand the background wisdoms as well so that we can obey God more easily.
Actually, we have the verse [2:216] which reads:
Fighting is prescribed for you [whenever its conditions are met], and ye dislike it. But it is possible
that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a
thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.
and the verses [5:45] and [2:179] which read:
We ordained therein for them: "Life for life, eye for eye, nose or
nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal." But
if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of
atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what
Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers.
In the Law of Equality there is (saving of) Life to you, o ye men of
understanding; that ye may restrain yourselves.
If you have a specific question about a specific rule then you can ask your question and hopefully you would be answered by those who know the wisdoms behind such rules of Allah. but only to say short, yes, the laws in Quran are universal and for all the times before resurrection, although during each era some secondary rules can be added to its collection of rules as temporary by the God's vicegerent of the time.
UPDATE.
About your first added question, that you compared Arabic with English it is a very good point to think why Quran has been inspired in this language, and you know that none of the previous divine books were in Arabic, although God being the same! Arabic is not my first language but as much as I study it I find it more and more remarkable. The words in Arabic are highly structured, the words in Arabic have intrinsic relation with other words through their roots, this intrinsic relation is usually more fundamental than you can find in any other language. For example two of the oldest words common to many languages are Adam or Aadam (آدم) and Noah or Nuh (نوح), peace be upon them, they are among the oldest words as they are the name of our first fathers, at their times all the people were together in one place so the language was unique! Adam was attributed to him due to his creation which was from dust, in English you may see no relation between Adam and dust but the relation in Arabic is quite clear as Adam has created from Adeem (ادیم), the upper layer of the Earth's surface. The same is also true for Noah, this is not actually a name but rather only an attribute, and comes from the Arabic world Nohe (نوحه = monody) and Noah was called Nuh (نوح) because he was very much a monodist during his loneliness. These are only examples to show you an Arabic text is much more talent for be survived than any other language. It is less possible in Arabic that you can interpret Quran based on culture, and for this claim I should first distinguish Quran from any other text in Arabic, as there is very tangled relationship between different words and verses in Quran, it is by no means a "local text", that is, you cannot always understand meaning of a part, or a verse, by only reading itself, rather you would like to read the whole book and then judge what that part or verse may imply! Being Arabic on one hand and being such tangled on the other hand and being a word of god with no mistake in it (in producing the tangled web) makes it impossible for the book to become mis-understandable through the passage of time, although there are always people who try to interpret it with their own perspectives and so there are many disagreements between different sects in Islam, however, these disagreements can be resolved by Quran itself if people would care. Then you will find a unique Arabic text with a unique interpretation of it among all the Muslims, and this is what all Muslims dream about, a united Ummah.
But about your second added question. You have been grown in another country compared to me, you have been taught different values and a different collection of rights and wrongs. If I do something, you may judge me based on your "learned collection of values" and would say, "you did right" or "you did wrong". This is quite natural to judge people based on our own learned values. But then, among us the Muslims, we see a man who has happend to be the holy prophet --peace be upon him--, if he dose something we have no other choice than to say "he is right", both in his deeds and speeches. This is what Allah has ordered us to say and to judge about him as the holy prophet --peace be upon him-- is introduced to us a good pattern in every respect:
Say: "I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I
know what is hidden, nor do I tell you I am an angel. I but follow
what is revealed to me." Say: "can the blind be held equal to the
seeing?" Will ye then consider not? [6:50]
Your Companion is neither astray nor being misled. / Nor does he say
(aught) of (his own) Desire. [53:2,3]
Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of
conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who
engages much in the Praise of Allah. [33:21]
so that his deeds and speeches are reasons for us to conclude if something is prescribed or forbidden, encouraged or discouraged or simply only allowed. If from my own cultural perspective any of his deeds seems to be strange then the reasonable conclusion would be this: "my collection of values is deviated and I should modify it a bit, or maybe even rebuild it from the beginning". Of course, this is not acceptable by non-Muslims because the holy prophet is not considered to be a pattern for them, but if they become Muslims the same thing also apply to them. Dealing with someone who is approved not to be astray, nor misled, nor talks on his own desire, nor follow but the God's inspiration, should of course be different than dealing with someone like me that behaves based on his culture and family traditions and etc. The punishment rules in Quran are also a must for Muslims to be accepted as authentic and wise, if some of these rules seem strange to me that's because my values are wrong, religion itself is the touchstone, it should not be analyzed by personal touchstones, everyone should obtain his collection of values from religion and of course this is partly why religions are set forward.
Quran very much addresses us to seek for the source of our own beliefs, have we got them from a confident source? My own system of beliefs for example was build in my family, in relation with cousins and later friends and then in thinking about our own and other cultures, all the times in past I was trying to make my system of beliefs less self-inconsistent, always modifying it based on different ideas and theories, mine or others', so that such an evolving system can never be claimed to be rigorous based on a solid ground, always one could ask a why so that I will have no answer in return, but then I came across the religion, after God was proved to me both intellectually and through my hearth I read Quran, which was claimed to be God's book, and found it from no one but God, then I had no other accuse not to accept the God's preferentials over mine, after all it is from the one who knows best, in any conflict between His ideas and mine certainly He knows what I don't know, and this is first trusting and then submitting to Allah, and Submission to Allah is the very meaning of Islam:
When it is said to them: "Come to what Allah hath revealed; come to
the Messenger": They say: "Enough for us are the ways we found our
fathers following." what! even though their fathers were void of
knowledge and guidance? [5:104]
So that now if someone tells me I just can't understand that rule in Islam because that's strange and I just cannot accept it, I answer then maybe your idea is wrong, they may simply laugh like them being wrong is even more strange(!) but that's what I have experienced for myself, so I still encourage them to think more deeply, that being I doesn't mean being right always.
Anyway, that was my perspective.
Godspeed
