We are deeply horrified by the news of Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a Jordanian military pilot, being burned alive by ISIS while confined in a cage. We can find no words to express the depth of sadness that we feel. We stand firmly by our condemnation of all forms of terrorism and proclaim that ISIS is a common enemy to humanity. We encourage everyone to not watch the video of the killing or share screenshots, as that will play into what ISIS seeks to gain by committing these atrocities. In contrast, Muath should be remembered by this image of him at Mecca, rather than the gruesome way he was killed.
Blogging Theology 
Islamic law, according to both Sunni and Shia scholars, explicitly prohibits burning any one alive.
I think the prohibition is based on hadith.
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did not Ali order someone to be executed by burning?
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I think the hadith says that only God has the right to punish by fire.
I don’t remember but I think there is narration (I don’t know of what authenticity) that some were preaching that Ali was God.
Then I forget the details but I think Ali reportedly told them that if they don’t then will go to hell.
And then they said that for sure Ali is God because he knows where they will go to. Thus they were supposedly intent on worshipping him and calling others to worship him.
And then supposedly Ali had a ditch made and then they were put in it and then they burned.
Hamza Yusuf told me a few others that he has some doubt on this because if Ibn Abbas knew that burning was forbidden, then Ali would have surely known it since he was the most knowledgeable of companions in Islamic law (and just about everything else in Islam as well).
Of course God knows best, but I think the narration was probably fabricated. The structure of the story and the bizaare behavior of those who were supposedly burned seems a little weird.
There were so many sects and so much attacks on each of them through employment of so called hadith.
Even Jonathan Brown says that hadith of a political nature are suspect…actually Brown mentioned in his Introduction to Hadith book that no genre of hadith was as carefully approached as legal hadith since the people were concerned with legal dos and donts and wanted to be sure…on the side, this implies that according to the traditional approach supporting Jonathan Brown, a huge number of hadith (even those graded as authentic) are to some degree suspicious if they are not legal hadith.
But back to the point, subjecting to another to fire is forbidden in Islamic law.
Also the Qur’an says in Surah 42 that it is better to forgive but when seeking punishment to what was done to you, do not subject anyone to what is beyond what they did to you.
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Ofcourse Muslims must condemn such atrocities…but to be morally consistent…we also have to condemn the use of napalm on civilians by the U.S., the use of atomic bombs (which also burned civilians alive) and the more recent use of white phosphorus (which also burns) by the U.S. military in Iraq/Afhanistan (others have also used it–Saudi’s in Yemen, Russians in Chechnya and Israel in Gaza)
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I’m not sure what ‘moral consistency’ had to do with this barbaric murder. Many people in the West have long condemned the bombing of Japan many years ago. That event is irrelevant to this sickening murder.
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