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wa-katabnā ʿalayhim fīhā ʾanna n-nafsa bi-n-nafsi wa-l-ʿayna bi-l-ʿayni wa-l-ʾanfa bi-l-ʾanfi wa-l-ʾudhuna bi-l-ʾudhuni wa-s-sinna bi-s-sinni wa-l-jurūḥa qiṣāṣun fa-man taṣaddaqa bihī fa-huwa kaffāratun lahū wa-man lam yaḥkum bi-mā ʾanzala llāhu fa-ʾulāʾika humu ẓ-ẓālimūna
In it We prescribed for them: a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, and an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and retaliation for wounds. Yet whoever remits it out of charity, that shall be an atonement for him. Those who do not judge by what Allah has sent down—it is they who are the wrongdoers.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-Ma'idah, Verse 45
45. "And We prescribed for them in it that: a life is for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds (there shall be) retaliation. But whoever remits it, it shall be an expiation (of his sins) for him; and whoever does not judge by what Allah has sent down, those are they that are the unjust."
Retaliation and Remittal
This verse explains another part of the ordinances concerning crimes and the bounds of Allah in the Torah. It denotes that Allah has assigned the law of retaliation in the Torah so that if a person intentionally murders an innocent one, the owners of blood can retaliate instead and execute the murderer.
If a person injures another one's eye and destroys it, the injured can also destroy the person's eye:
He is also permitted to cut his nose instead of his own nose:
Instead of cutting an ear, the one can cut one ear of his:
And, if a person breaks the tooth of another person, he can break the criminal's tooth, too. It says:
In general, every person who injures or wounds another person, it can be retaliated:
Therefore, the ordinance of retaliation should be done justly and without considering any difference from the point of race, social level, tribe, and personality. But, in order that nobody imagines that Allah has decreed the law of retaliation as a compulsory rigid duty, immediately next to this ordinance, it adds:
That is, as much as he has remitted in that regard, Allah will remit out of his sins for him. And, at the end of the verse, it says:
What an unjust is greater than that we be entangled with some false affections and feelings, and dispense with the murderer absolutely by the excuse that a blood should not be washed out by a blood!