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As downloading without owning the rights equals stealing to some people, can an islamic court that bases it's laws on the sharia cut the stealing person's fingers?

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Of course no. First of all, in Islam , to get your fingers ( actually palm , not fingers ) cut , there are conditions to be fulfilled first: one of them if that the value of the stolen thing is higher than a limit put by the court called "nysab", I am sure that this movie or whatever your downloading won't exceed it . Second of all, in my opinion , I don't think torrent or any cracked program is stealing . It's not considering stealing if you're not stealing from someone, which you're not , cause the up loader made it free to download, even if it is cracked. Hope this helps, thanks for asking .

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I think if someone or organisation puts a price on something they have created no matter what it is, it would be considered stealing if you download it. It's no different from going to said person/organisation shop and stealing it physically. That is my opinion. – emtunc Jan 20 at 0:33
well, this considering hacking , which is of course stealing, but i am talking about someone who bought the antivirus (for example) , created a crack and put it free to download, that's not stealing. – Abdelrahman Esmat Jan 20 at 5:55
You get your palm cut? Does that mean you lose your whole hand once being found guilty of stealing? – Zurechtweiser Jan 20 at 10:35
@AbdelrahmanEsmat you're encouraging others to steal which is almost worse than committing the crime your self. – emtunc Jan 20 at 17:08
@emtunc well , you just don't see my point , in my country , there are sites where people purchase games and then share them on the site . And i was very careful by saying that this is my opinion as i never asked a sheikh about that . But i think that's okay as long as you are not hacking – Abdelrahman Esmat Jan 20 at 20:15
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An Islamic Country doesn't necessarily mean that it implements sharia wholistically, if that is what you are asking. Currently there is no country in the world where there is the existence of the sharia as a whole, countries like saudi arabia are monarchies with bits of sharia.

If you are talking about an Islamic State ie a state that bases its ideology on sharia entirely (Caliphate), then it wouldn't be that straight forward to cut peoples hands no! For example at the time of Umar's (2nd caliph of Islam) Rule he suspended the rule of cutting ones hand due to the state not being able to provide for its citizens.

For your question you would have to define if that constitutes a theft in the first place.

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England was once a Christian country. At one point, not really that long ago, you could be hanged for stealing apples if you were a poor pauper. Of course they do not do this now.

Sharia is not a monolithic legal construct, there are different schools, and it will change with the times. The law of Allah, the formal law of the people, the law as it embodied in the people, and the law as it is executed are all very different things.

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Not sure this addresses the question re download. Also, not sure what the England point is trying to make, but: to say England is a Christian country is an over-simplification. It has an established church, but is mostly run on secular lines, except for some bizarre historical vestiges that are slowly changing. – Marc Gravell♦ Jan 26 at 18:59
@Gravell: Well, yes - I should have made it clearer that I was referring to England in a historical framework, not today (although John Gray, an English philosopher claims that Christianity is still a very strong animating force in the european context, which is probably also what I had in mind, but I don't want to go into that debate here). As for your second point, I'm just making the point that the law changes, admittedly it would be better if I chose an example from the 'Islamic' world, but I've been brought & educated in England. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 26 at 20:45

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