Decapitation

Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is inevitably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary functions that are needed for the body to function.

The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a person, either as a means of murder or as an execution; it may be performed with an axe, sword, or knife, or by mechanical means such as a guillotine. An executioner who carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called a headsman.

Mounds were made of the bodies of the slain, pillars of their heads. ~ Babur

Quotes

• When thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger.
  • Quran 8.12. M. M. Pickthall
  • This verse has been used to provide a justification for decapitation in the context of war although there is a debate as to whether the Quran discusses decapitation.

• Now when you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks until, when you have subdued them, then make fast the bonds, and afterward either generosity or ransom until the war lays down its burdens. That, and if Allah willed, he could have punished them, but so that he may test some of you by means of others. And those who have been killed in the way of Allah, he does not make their actions useless.
  • Quran 47.4
  • This verse has been used to provide a justification for decapitation in the context of war although there is a debate as to whether the Quran discusses decapitation.

• Strike them on their foreheads to tear them apart and over the necks to cut them off, and cut off their limbs, hands and feet.
  • Ibn Kathir, IV, 274. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged) (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2000) quoted in The critical qur’an: explained from key islamic commentaries and contemporary historical research. (2021). . Bombardier Books.

• It happened that a man would go to strike at the neck of an unbeliever and his head would fall off before his sword was able to get there.
  • Tafsir al-Jalalayn , 379. Jalalu’d-Din al-Mahalli and Jalalu’d-Din as-Suyuti, Tafsir al-Jalalayn , translated by Aisha Bewley (London: Dar Al Taqwa Ltd., 2007) quoted in The critical qur’an: explained from key islamic commentaries and contemporary historical research. (2021). . Bombardier Books.

• Mounds were made of the bodies of the slain, pillars of their heads.
  • Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 572-73

• An order was given to set up a pillar of pagan heads on the ... hill between which and our camp the battle had been fought. (...) About 1000 men, women and children were made prisoner ; there as also great slaughter, and a pillar of heads was raised.
  • Babur. Memoirs (Babur-Nama), Translated by A. Beveridge. Delhi, 1979. 120 quoted in Ibn Warraq, Why I am not a Muslim, 1995. p 340

• Not a week passed without the spilling of much Muslim blood and the running of streams of gore before the entrance of his palace. This included cutting people in half, skinning them alive, chopping off heads and displaying them on poles as a warning to others, or having prisoners tossed about by elephants with swords attached to their tusks.
  • — Ibn Battuta, Travel Memoirs (1334-1341, Delhi) in : Ross Dunn (1989), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century, University of California Press, Berkeley

• How many infidels' heads have you caused to be cut off? He said, 'There would be 200,000 heads so that there might be two rows of minarets of heads from Agra to Patna.
  • Abdullah Khan Uzbeg Firoz Jung quoted in Shah Nawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-Umara, I, 105. [1]

• As the same Muhammadan diarist records after a visit to Vrindavan: 'Wherever you gazed you beheld heaps of the slain; you could only pick your way with difficulty, owing to the quantity of bodies lying about and the amount of blood spilt. At one place that we reached we saw about two hundred dead children lying in a heap. Not one of the dead bodies had a head. The stench and effluvium in the air were such that it was painful to open your mouth or even to draw breath.'
  • About Ahmed Shah Durrani in Vrindavan: Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Volume II, Fourth Edition, New Delhi, 1991, p.70-71

• From Buckever hither were above 200 Munaries' [minar, pillar], with heads mortered and plaistered in, leaveinge out nothing but their verie face, some 30, some 40, some more some lesse. This was Abdula Ckauns exploit (whoe is now Governour of Puttana), by the kings Order. For this way was soe pestered with Rebbells and Theeves, that there was noe passinge; soe that the Kinge sent Abdulla Ckaun, with 12,000 horse and 20,000 foote to suppresse them, whoe destroyed all their Townes', tooke all their goods, their wives and children for slaves, and the cheifest of their men, causeing their heads to bee cutt of and to be immortered as before [depicted].
  To the Munares of dead mens heads made bv Abdulla Ckaun ['Abdullah Khan ] are added since our comeinge this way by Furzand Ckaun [Farzand Khan] about 60 more with 35 or 40 heads a peece, lately killed.
  Neere Etaya [Etawa] there was a new Munare a makeinge with a great heape of heads lyeing by them, ready to bee immortered.
  • Peter Mundy, Travels, II, pp. 90, 185, 186. [2] [3]
  • On Mundy's travel from Agra to Patna in 1632 . About the exploits of one of Jahangir’s commanders, Abdullah Khan Uzbeg Firoz Jung, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area. also cited in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

• The beautiful coconut trees which once graced the gardens surrounding the city of Madura, have been cut down by these intruders, and in place of these, we have gruesome substitutes in the form of iron sula, which are adorned with garlands of decapitated human heads strung together.
  • (Madhura Vijaya 1924: 5-7). quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Episodes from Indian history.253ff