Islamic Law and Society, University of Exeter, Al-Shawkani, legal society, Shari'a, apostasy, physical harm, murder, crime, God, Islam
The Shari'a does not focus as much on criminal law as it does on family law, but a small part is dedicated to crimes and sanctions, and despite not being strictly applied, those principles still have a normative force among different modern Muslim states' legal systems. Islamic criminal law is considered as private law, where crimes are most of the time treated as disputes between 2 parties in which the judge intervenes only to help the settlement, but some exceptions exist. The main areas of criminal law can be determined by the severity of the punishments attached to different crimes, the strongest one being the death penalty, but we can also identify categories with the nature of the crime or the way that it is condemned (like if it is a public or a private matter).
[...] The crimes against God remain indeed the most serious ones, and their punishment is a central priority in Islamic legal societies to protect the religious authority. Murder and Physical Harm, the Private Matter of Retaliation Against Men Murder and physical harm are the main crimes committed against Men, and their punishment follows the principle of direct retaliation, lex talionis, which consists of inflicting the same harm to the perpetrator than the one he caused. The goal here is to restore the balance in society that was impacted by the crime, and this through qisas, in other words the opportunity for the victim or the victim's family to obtain a punishment equal to the harm they suffered. [...]
[...] Johansen, Apostasy as Objective and Depersonalized Fact: Two Recent Egyptian Court Judgments (Social Research, Vol 70, No Islam: the Public and Private Spheres, 2003) K. S. Vikor, Between God and the Sultan, A History of Islamic Law (Hurst, 2005) Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, Al-Khilāf (1067) Paul R. [...]
[...] Criminal Law in an Islamic Legal Society Course title: Islamic Law and Society Course code: Word count: 2410 Section Commentary - Text Al-Shawkani In this text, the author gives the different conditions for being a mujtahid and argues on various controversies regarding those. Al-Shawkani was a Yemeni scholar and jurist from the 18th-19th century, he is mostly known for his call to a return to the textual sources of Islamic law (Quran and hadith) and was a strong advocate for ijtihad, which he practiced himself in what he considered to be the highest form. [...]
[...] Some national legal systems have consecrated this idea like Qatar in its Criminal code, which describes the difference of treatment between an intentional and unintentional murder. Apostasy, an Ambiguous and Evolving Status The crime of apostasy, which is to convert from Islam to another religion, does not seem to fall under the category of hudud nor of physical crimes against men. It is a particularly serious crime which has been, in practice, considered as punishable by death and is subject to strict recognition conditions (like the expression of unbelief in Allah by the apostate himself). [...]
[...] The debate is still open. Section B - Question Giving examples, analyse the aims and objectives in key areas of criminal law in an Islamic legal society The Shari'a does not focus as much on criminal law as it does on family law, but a small part is dedicated to crimes and sanctions, and despite not being strictly applied those principles have all still a normative force amongst different modern Muslim states' legal systems. Islamic criminal law is considered as private law, where crimes are most of the time treated as disputes between 2 parties in which the judge intervenes only to help the settlement, but some exceptions exist. [...]
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