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7. Islam's 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty' Concept <br />Islam has also laid clown the principle that no citizen can be imprisoned unless his <br />guilt has been proved in an open court. To arrest a man only on the basis of <br />suspicion and to throw him into a prison without proper court proceedings and <br />without providing him a reasonable opportunity to produce his defence is not <br />permissible in Islam. (6) [al-Mauducli] <br />A. The Quranic Position on Justice <br />"Whenever you judge between people, you should judge with justice" <br />(The Holy Quran, 4:58) <br />B. The Prophet's Release of Unlawfully Detained Persons <br />It is related in the hadith that a man rose during the Prophet (pbuh)'s sermon and <br />asked; " O Prophet of Allah, for what crime have my neighbours been arrested?" <br />The Prophet heard the question and continued his speech. The man rose once again <br />and repeated the same question, The Prophet again did not answer and continued his <br />speech. The man rose for a third time and repeated the same question. Then the <br />Prophet ordered that the man's neighbours be immediately released. [Sunan Abi <br />Dawood, 3631 ] <br />The reason why the Prophet had kept quiet when the question was repeated <br />twice earlier was that the police officer was present in the mosque and if there <br />were proper reasons for the arrest of the neighbours of this man, he would have <br />got up to explain his position. The fact that the police officer did not give any <br />reasons for the arrests in the open court was sufficient reason for the Prophet <br />to give immediate orders for the release of the arrested individuals. (7) <br />[al-Maududi] 17 <br />