1) This year our mosque has made it possible for us students to take 10 hawza classes, which have been great. However, this one lesson had me thinking a lot. Our last class was about punishments and the ruling on how us humans can punish others if they commit a فاحشة. I know it’s in the holy Quran but can’t these verses be seen metaphorically? As in Allah swt wanting the believers to see how big of a sin a fahisha is. I personally can’t see the logic in us humans punishing others and in a way acting like God taking peoples lives. I mean Allah swt forgives all sins as it says in the holy Quran, so how can we decide whether or not this person can do tawbah or die. The point of this dunya is that it is a test and some people will commit these fawahish whether we like it or not. I come to think of this story of imam Ali (as) when a man who had cheated on his wife came to Imam Ali (as). Imam
Ali (as) did everything to avoid killing this man. So why do some, people who are far from infallible, get the opportunity to make these rulings? I know that it has to be multiple judges and scholars but they are still not infallible.

2) Other than that I have a question about temporary marriage. Lately, a Swedish broadcasting show made a documentary about mutah. It turned out to be misused by almost all scholars here in Sweden. So this broadcasting show would pretend to be a woman who is in need of money and doesn’t know what to do. The sheikh wanted her to do mutah and also doing it with him. This was not only one sheikh but almost all of the Shia mosques in Sweden responded the same. They took it further and did more research in how the mosques in Europe would answer, and it was the same there. When I see these kinds of things I can’t help but lose faith in a lot of our scholars. The idea of mutah is in my opinion, so wrong and does more harm than good.

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1- Regarding the question on punishments, yes Islam does want to avoid punishing people. Hence, when some offenders would confess the Imams would try to dissuade them from doing so. But if they kept insisting, then at the end of the day they had to be punished. As for believers punishing, this only occurs when all the conditions are fulfilled. If the crime is proven, and there is just no way out, then the offenders have to be punished. If people know there is no punishment for their violations, they won’t be deterred, they commit sins openly, and society becomes immoral. By threatening to punish people for immoral acts, Islam is actually protecting good people from being corrupted. So this is more of a deterrent. In practice, it’s very rare for it to happen.

2- Regarding Mut’ah, my assessment is that most men when put in a position of power they use their position to have a relationship with women. This applies to all humans, whether Muslims or Christians, atheists or Buddhists, Sunnis or Shias, and whether through Mut’a or other means. This same broadcasting company, let them do a documentary on churches and Sunni mosques and you’ll see similar things going on there, although in different forms. So this is a human problem. Men have very powerful sexual needs, and many times they fail in restricting this need. So honestly it’s not a Mut’ah issue in my opinion.

Having said that, not all religious leaders abuse Muta’ah. There are many who don’t but maybe we don’t hear about them or the spotlight is not about them.

Also, Mut’ah has its conditions. If you want to better understand how it works I recommend you see the following classes I gave at our Hawza years ago:

https://youtu.be/fibFNckBnak

https://youtu.be/z1fuNzr0w-M

https://youtu.be/jjKpsv6x9Vs

If you have any follow up questions feel free to ask.