killing

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh, dear scholars,BarakaAllahu feekum for your excellent service that you provide. May Allah ta'aala bless you all for your efforts and your support that you give.I would like to ask you to help me with understanding in surat-ul-baqqarah ayah no. 178, that deals with qisas. So far I understand that in case a person kills another person, only the murderer can get the hadd-punishment of death.now, just in theory, a free man kills intentionally a slave from another family, does the family of the killed slave have the right to kill in retaliation according 2:178 a slave of the killers family, although this slave from the killers family does not have done anything wrong (?the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female??)? In my mind this would be unfair, if according to 2:178 it would be possible to kill a human being, who never had anything to do with the killing.  Could you please clarify this to me?especially I am looking for an explanation from the point-of-view of those scholars, who say, that ayah 2:178 was NOT abrogated by ayah 5:45.Please help me with this, because I have no possibility in my home-country, to ask a real scholar and the topic of qisas often is brought up towards us Muslims by many kuffar.

what is the islamic view on 'mercy killing?'

Dear scholar,I am myself secular, but I have a deep interest in the thoughts of religions, and I believe there is much wisdom to be gained from them.As far as I have understood, Islam has a much greater emphasis on forgiveness than most Western societies.In Iran, there are many teenages sentenced to death. Usually, on offences argueably committed in self defence.It is my opinion that death sentence is a horrible crime and sin itself, but it is especially dreadful when it comes to executing children. Now, take for example the case of Reza Alinejad, who was attacked by two men, and came to kill one in self defence. The other attacker has admitted that they did indeed attack unprovoced.Now, no death can be justified, however, wouldn't it be in good, muslim tradition that forgiveness would come to this child? Would it be possible that a scholar could negotiate forgiveness between the murdered man's family and Reza Alinejad? This is an area where I have felt that Islam is superior to Western societies, and given the alternative, the execution of a minor, I would think that forgiveness is important.

As-Salam `alaykum ! Dear scholars, what is your response to an accusation levied against Islam, branding it as a racial religion, as it says that Muslims should not be killed for murdering non-Muslims?

Why kill innocents? Did our civilization not learn from previous times, the Crusades and other "wars-of-faith". We are all God's children. All faiths and religions are like fingers on the hands of God (Allah, Buddah, Christ, Muhammad, Zoroaster, Vishnu, or however we choose to call our god). We are one! Who are we that we deign to play God and take life? Spare innocents, as they are not yours to kill. Seek your path if you must, but spare the innocents, as they did not wrong you.