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ollowing the execution of four drug convicts on early Friday, Muslim scholars and the leaders of the country’s major Muslim organizations are divided over whether capital punishment is sanctioned by Islam.

Prominent members of the country’s two-largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, have expressed their opposition toward the execution of the four death row convicts, Freddy Budiman, Seck Osmane, Michael Titus and Humphrey Jefferson, who were sentenced to death for drug offenses, although the two organizations have officially endorsed President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s position of applying the death penalty in the administration’s war on drugs policy.

NU scholar Ulil Abshar-Abdalla is among the organization’s most high-profile members to openly express his opposition to the death penalty.

“Muslims who start to take human rights into account have begun to think how unreasonable the death penalty is. I consider myself as one of them,” the NU scholar said.

Ulil expressed his pessimism over the claim that capital punishment could generate a deterrent effect, especially given the rampant corruption plaguing the country’s judicial system.

“The government appears to be tough, but the truth of the matter is, the number of drug users continues to rise,” Ulil said.

Data from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) revealed that the number of drug users reached 4.2 million people as of June 2015 and the number grew to 5.9 million people by November.

Ulil’s view echoes that of Tariq Ramadan, a Muslim scholar and professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. Ramadan wrote a letter to Jokowi on July 31, two days after the execution of the four drug convicts took place, arguing that the death penalty does not reflect Islamic values.

Ramadan was concerned that the drug offenders who were executed did not receive a fair trial under Islamic principles, or that they might not understand the legal proceedings against them.

He also maintained that there was no punishment for drug-related crimes specified within a sharia legal framework. In addition, Quranic principles, according to Ramadan, strictly prohibit the deprivation of the right to life of all human beings.

“Islamic law calls for forgiveness and mercy. Above and beyond all of this, rahmah [compassion] is an absolute necessity,” he wrote. Ramadan called on President Jokowi to reevaluate past executions and halt future ones.

Ramadan has been an ardent campaigner for the abolition of corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Islamic world.

In 2005, he wrote that “Islam is being used to degrade and subjugate women and men in certain Muslim-majority societies in the midst of collusive silence and chaotic judicial opinions on the ground.”

He also urged “Muslims throughout the world to refuse the formalist legitimization of the teachings of their religion and reconcile themselves with the deep message that invites us towards spirituality, demands education, justice and the respect of pluralism.”

Prominent Muslim scholar Haidar Bagir, the president director of the Mizan Group and a graduate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, said Muslim leaders could pick and choose words from their scriptures to support their policy in applying capital punishment.

“People who say the death penalty is right can find a reason behind it and people who say the death penalty is wrong can also find a reason to support their argument [in the scriptures],” he said.

Haidar said that forgiveness remained the best option in the case of the death penalty.

“In the Quran, there is the idea of qisas [an eye for an eye] but it is quickly added that forgiving is more important,” he said.

Meanwhile, Syamsul Anwar, the head of Muhammadiyah’s law-making body (tarjih), supported the government’s decision to impose the death penalty. He said for a specific crime that had the potential to kill other people, such as drug trafficking, the death penalty was acceptable.

“The death penalty in the Quran is not prohibited for murderers or for people who create disastrous acts in the world,” he told The Jakarta Post over the phone. (win)