"On Crime and Punishment" Summary

A judge asks about crime and punishment, and Almustafa declares that wronging another wrongs oneself and delays entering the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean, one's god-self is forever undefiled and soars and shines like the sun rather than burrowing into the earth. The god-self dwells inside man's being, even while he is still a shapeless, sleepless pigmy searching to awaken. Neither pigmy nor god-self is involved in crime and punishment. Many call criminals strangers and intruders, but people can rise or fall no farther than those around them. As the whole tree knows when a leaf turns yellow, so too does society participate in all wrongdoing. When marchers leading a parade stumble over a stone, this warns those behind, and when those far behind stumble, those who fail to remove the stone are...