Qisas

[Benjamin Barrett]

Google Books turns up some hits from the nineteenth century. The earliest I see is 1819, "The annals of the college of Fort William" by Thomas Roebuck: "No. 2. An exercise on the Law of Qisas or Retaliation, extracted from the Mooheeti Surukhsee" [A dot under each "s" in "Qisas," a dot under the next-to-last "h" and two under the last "t."] (http://bit.ly/oI9rjZ)

Another notable citation is from 1885 in "The cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia: commercial, industrial and scientific, products of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, useful arts and manufactures" by Edward Balfour: "Qisas, literally retaliation, the lex talionis of Exodus xxi. 24; but Mahomed allowed a money compensation, at the discretion of the next of kin, to the murdered person." (http://bit.ly/pbBbNR)

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Aug 1, 2011, at 11:00 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:

>
> Ini an AP story by Nasser Karimi in today's Seattle Times, the word "qisas" is defined. The article says:
>
> -----
> If no agreement is reached, then "qisas," or eye-for-an-eye retribution, is enforced.
> -----
>
> The word does not appear in the online OED.
>
> Wiktionary has the word only as an Azeri translation of "revenge" though Wikipedia has a short article.
>
> Although the Wikipedia article has a supposed citation from 2009 from the "Phillie Metro," I can't find (without looking too hard) that publication. It appears this story may be the first mainstream use.
>
> The article "Pakistan: Women's Commission Recommends Qisas Law Be Amended" cites a publication date of April 1, 2004.
>
> The abstract "Pakistan: new forms of cruel and degrading punishment" is dated March 1, 1991: "This circular deals with the new forms of punishment recently introduced in Pakistan under the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance. " The source article has the term 34 times.
>
> An earlier article "Divine Law or Man-Made Law? Egypt and the Application of the Shari'a" by Rudolph Peters is dated August 1988. Google provides the quote "They have been published in Mashnxat qawartin al-qisas ws-l-diye wa-l-hudud al-shartiyya." The shortened link is http://bit.ly/oE6uAO, though JSTOR access is required to see the article, which I don't have.
>
> This seems like a handy word for describing this ancient tradition.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org