Summary of the Issues

Ramallah, Palestine. 2009. Judge Khuloud Faqih at the Islamic Law Court which presides over family affairs. Photo credit: Muhammed Muheisen/AP Images.

"... If anyone kills a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people.”¹

Islam stresses the concept of social justice and equality for all people. Nonetheless, criminal punishment is a controversial issue for Muslims around the world. As Islam is a way of life, where public and private spheres are intimately intertwined, Islamic jurisprudence prescribes punishment for issues that are often kept outside a nation’s penal code such as adultery. There are those that argue for a strict application of the Islamic law as a prerequisite to a truly “Islamic” society and others that accept corporal punishments of Islamic law only under the condition that a society is already fair and just. ²

There are various categories of punishment in Islam. Some punishments are listed in the Quran and tradition of Prophet Muhammad, while others are left to the Islamic judge. The Islamic judge determines the sentencing when punishments are not prescribed in holy sources.³ It is important to note that within Muslim communities individuals cannot take the law into their own hands. Proper judicial procedures must take place in order to ensure justice for all parties involved with an alleged crime.

The legal sentencing and criminal punishments in the Muslim world vary from country to country. For example, there are many Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey, Senegal, and Bosnia that abolished the death sentence and countries such as Indonesia, where the death penalty still exists. Unfortunately, often punishments are applied in violation of Islamic teachings. For example, in order to apply the punishment for fornication and adultery, the offense must first be proven through voluntary confession or by the testimony of four witnesses, of good character, who state under oath that they have witnessed the commission of the act itself, an incredibly substantial burden of proof. In countries such as Iran however, the Islamic penal code allows a single judge to rule according to personal opinion instead of the required testimony of four witnesses.⁴ The Bangladesh High Court has outlawed punishments handed down by fatwas, or religious legal opinions, after Muslim women were publicly whipped for adultery, which was considered a crime. The ruling provides jail terms for clerics or any members of village courts who order such punishments by invoking Islamic law because it is perceived as harming, endangering, and targeting women.⁵ Tariq Ramadan, a leading Muslim scholar, argues that the political systems and the state of Muslim-majority societies do not guarantee just or equal treatment of individuals before the law and he calls for “an immediate international moratorium on corporal punishments, stoning, and the death penalty in all Muslim-majority countries.” ⁶ He states “penalties are most exclusively applied to women and the poor, the doubly victimized, never to the wealthy, the powerful, or the oppressor.”⁷

[1] Quran 5:32
[2] Tariq, Ramadan. An International Call for Moratorium on Corporal punishment, stoning and the death Penalty in the Islamic World, 2005.
[3] Ghassemi, Criminal Punishment in Islamic Societies: Empirical Study of Attitudes to Criminal Sentencing in Iran
[4]Violence is not our Culture-the Global Campaign to stop Killing and stoning women
[5]Bangladesh Bans Religious Punishments
[6] Tariq, Ramadan. An International Call for Moratorium on Corporal punishment, stoning and the death Penalty in the Islamic World, 2005.
[7] ibid.