The Evolution of the Relationship between Crime and Punishment: A Comparative Study of Political Islam and Jurisprudential Islam

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Student, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Ferdowsi , Mashhad, Iran.

2 MA. Department of Law, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Razi, Kermanshah , Iran.

10.22034/mfu.2025.142875.1515

Abstract

This article analyzes various opinions and interpretations regarding crime and punishment in pre-modern Islamic societies across the geographical expanse from the Nile region in Africa to the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and the mutual interaction between jurists (fuqaha) and caliphs on this matter. The emergence of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and the formation of Islamic governments necessitated the formulation and implementation of rulings concerning crime and punishment of criminals in accordance with the Qur’an and narrations (hadith). Muslim rulers and politicians attempted to legitimize their reign by outwardly adhering to criminal jurisprudential rulings. However, the fluid requirements of politics alongside the fixed nature of jurisprudence (fiqh) led caliphs to effectively bypass criminal jurisprudential fatwas by creating extensive judicial and executive networks without jurisprudential precedent, such as the Court of Grievances (diwan al-mazalim), urban police, and market inspector (muhtasib). Although this situation was not to accepted by Sunni jurists, some of them, accepting existing political realities and believing that the presence of an oppressive yet Sharia-compliant ruler was better than no ruler at all, sought to mend the deficiency of politics with the needle of expediency, finding jurisprudential justifications for the penal actions of rulers. This way, a connection was established between jurisprudence and politics. However, due to the Sunni denomination of the caliphs, Imami jurists played no role in the game of politics. The present research, based on a descriptive-analytical method, seeks to provide contextual and interdisciplinary approaches to pre-modern Islamic criminal law.

Keywords

References

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Comparative Studies on the Schools of Jurisprudence and its Principles
Volume 7, Issue 2 - Serial Number 13
Publisher
September 2024
Pages 139-114

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