Islam for Muslims

• THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
• 1 Meaning & Importance of Faith (Iman)
• 2 Some Signs of Ideal Faith
• 3 God As The Unique and Supreme being
• 4 God as the All-Powerful
• 5 God’s Power in Shaping Destiny
• 6 God as the Creator
• 7 God as the Merciful
• 8 God as the Protector
• 9 God as the all-knowing
• 10 God as the Guide
• 11 God as the Judge
• 12 The Prophets in the Quran
• 13 Mohammad (pbuh) as the Final Prophet
• 14 Divine Books, Angels & Jinns
• 15 Various Stages of Life after Death
• GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
• 16 Importance & Types of Good Deeds: Importance & Types of Good Deeds
• 17 Some Ideal Signs of Good Deeds
• 18 God at the Center of Religious Universe
• 19 Sources of Islamic Laws (Sharia)
• 20 Purification & Preparation for Prayer
• 21 The Essentials of Prayer (Salat)
• 22 The Essentials of Charity (Zakat, Fitr and Qurbani)
• 23 The Essentials of Fasting (Siam)
• 24 The Essentials of Pilgrimage (Hajj)
• 25 The Essentials of Knowledge (Ilm)
• 26 The Essentials of Inheritance (Faraiz)
• 27 The Essentials of Halal Income
• 28 The Essentials of Halal Food
• 29 The Essentials of Modest Dress & Behavior
• 30 The Essentials of Marriage & Divorce
• 31 The Essentials of Death & Funeral
• 32 Optional but Valuable Deeds
• 33 Avoiding Personal Sins: Why & How?
• 34 Fighting Satan (Devil) to Avoid Sins
• 35 Five Major Sin Packages
• GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
• 36 The Importance of Preaching & Good Advice
• 37 The Techniques of Preaching & Good Advice
• 38 The Roles of Family & Parents
• 39 The Roles of Schools & Students
• 40 The Roles of Mosques & Muslims
• 41 The Roles of Print and Social Media
• 42 The Importance of Resisting Social Sins
• 43 The Techniques of Resisting Social Sins
• 44 Observing Islam in a Non-Muslim Environment
• 45 Islamic Governance: Legality, Potentials & Problems
• 46 Criminal Justice System for the Muslims
• 47 The Ideal Qualities of a Muslim: Piety & Proficiency
• 48 The Unity among the Muslims: Why & How?
• 49 The key to progress and prosperity of muslims
• 50 Final Appeal to the Muslims

46:  CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN ISLAM

Introduction: Islam aims to lay foundation for a civilized society by providing a legal framework that is broad-based and fair enough to discipline human conduct. This upholds the benevolent role of God as the Law Giver, in preference to leaving law in the hands of lawless people such as those who unjustly kill people in the name of family honor, as an example. This is also an aspect that makes Islam unique.

(A) Features of Islamic Laws: Islamic legal system is special in the following ways:

(1) Equal & Impartial Judgment: Islam is committed to fairness by standing against any bias for any privileged groups like the ruler or rich or closely related people of the Judges. It establishes the law of equality saying, “ Life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth and wounds equal for equal” (5:45). This shows an improvement over most other legal systems including Hammurabi Code, Roman laws etc. which showed double standard based on social class.

(2) Fair & Firm Punishment: The principle of equality and fairness not only applies to verdict or sentencing but also in its sincere application. Differing from modern judicial culture, it commits to making sure that fair sentence is firmly implemented without any negative influences from compassion, favoritism etc.  God advises you to “stand out firmly for justice, as witness to God even if that goes against yourselves, your parents, or your kin” (4:135). You are also warned, “Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed By God” (24:2). In fair application of such divine policy, Caliph Umar whipped his son Abu Shama 80 times with his own hands.

(3) Showy Punishment: Islamic penalties take on a public nature under the advice, “let a party of believers witness their punishment” (24: 2).  The purpose is to keep crimes down out of fear element and thus protect people from penalties therefrom.

(4) Reliable Witness: True witness is considered the cornerstone of fair judgment. Islam, therefore, requires the witnesses (two males: each substitutable by two women) having pious background.  If you “doubt (their truthfulness)”, they need to “swear by God”(after prayer) against “hiding the evidence” (5:106). If it gets known that “these two were (previously) found guilty of the sin (of perjury)” (5:107), you need to replace them in favor of truer witnesses.

(5) Dual Variety of Penalties: There are two types of Islamic penalties: (i) Six penalties namely murder, injury, robbery and similar violent transgression, defamation, adultery and theft cited in the Quran for punishments that are not pardonable or commutable by the ruler (Caliph). (ii) Non-Quranic penal codes (such as for drinking of alcohol) that can be forgiven or reduced by the ruler. Now follows an account about Islamic penal code.

(B) The Quranic Penal Code:

(1) Penalty for Murder: (i) Willful Murder: In Islam, the “law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder” (2:178). Accordingly, if you murdered someone in cold blood, you will face matching penalty. This means for your single murder you have to pay price with a single life, that is your life and there will not be loss of multiple lives by way of excessive revenge. Thus in this provision of equality ultimately “there is a (saving of) Life to you” (2:179). If, however, you regret for your murder and the family of the murdered person agrees to your freedom in exchange for a “handsome compensation”, then “remission” may be allowed (2:178). Otherwise, the ruler does not have any right to pardon or commute the death sentence, contrasting with open-ended power to pardon by the US President, as an example. After any settlement between the two parties, the door is closed on further avenge for the murder, under pain of “grave penalty” (2:178).  

(ii) Unintended Murder: If you kill somebody “by mistake” such as through ‘friendly fire’ due to confused identity, then you will not have to pay price through your life. Your penalty in such case will be “freeing a believing slave and payment of compensation to the deceased’s family, unless they remit it freely” (4:92). If you do not have money to compensate, you will “fast for two months in a row, as repentance to God” (4:92).

(2) Penalty for Physical Injury: Here also the law of equality dictates the penal code. “An equal injury for injury” like “eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth and wounds equal for equal” is the principle of Quranic penalty (42:40; 5:45). In this case also the door is open for reconciliation through pardon by the victim in exchange for compensation. Here the obvious purpose is social wellbeing instead of cruel revenge.

(3) Penalty for Robbery & Violent Transgression: Islam takes a strict position against your violent transgression “spreading mischief across the land” (5:33) through terrorism, riot, robbery etc. It therefore specifies severe penalties of “execution or crucifixion or cutting off hands and feet from opposite sides or exile from the land” (5:33). There is however a scope for compromising with the maximum punishment in case of your heartfelt regret and willingness of the victim to trade forgiveness with monetary compensation, returning robbed assets etc.

(4) Punishment for Defamation: Islam highly values your prestige in the society and therefore provides penalties against bringing false charges of adultery. If you “bring charge of adultery against a chaste woman” and cannot produce “four witnesses”, then your designated penalty will be “flogging with eighty stripes” and you will be disqualified from being a witness for ever (24:4). You should, therefore, try to keep a safe distance from making any false accusations that directly or indirectly land blame of adultery on someone. For example, if you question someone’s fatherhood, that indirectly points to adultery of that person’s mother.

(5) Penalty for Adultery (and Homosexuality): Islam makes a difference between the married and unmarried while awarding punishment for adultery. The penalty for fornication by unmarried men or women is “flogging each of them with a hundred stripes” in public and “without any compassion” (24:2). The crime of adultery for the married (with supposed less temptation to crime than the unmarried) is punishable by stoning to death (‘rajm’) in public square. The conviction, however, will be subject to the following conditions: (i) being a Muslim (ii) legally married (iii) mental and physical maturity (iv) lack of psychiatry problem (v) freedom of will (vi) voluntary personal confession. Such confession is given more importance than four witnesses in order to eliminate any doubt in the charge. The Prophet used to clearly ask the offender if he did something short of adultery like kissing or touching in order to give him a chance of saving life. Traditionally, death penalty was actually given to a very few number of people who made voluntary but emotional confession about adultery in order to be purified from the filth of this ugly sin.

Homosexuality is also viewed as no less worse a crime than adultery. Historically, this sin was punished by God through devastating “showers of brimstones” on the people of prophet Lut (11:82). Islamic jurists agree on equating sodomy with adultery with respect to penalties.

(6) Penalty for Stealing: Islam provides for prohibitive punishment of “cutting off his or her hands” for stealing (5:38). Such consequence is however filtered through multiple steps or conditions to ensure both accuracy and fairness. Exemptions or leniency apply only to doubtful cases due to inadequacy of evidences or witnesses, poverty related theft, small value theft, physical or mental immaturity, psychiatry problem and so on.

(C) Non-Quranic Penalties: Many of these penalties come from the Prophet’s tradition. For example, drinking of alcohol was punishable with 40 lashes and so on.  The penalties of crimes not mentioned in the Quran nor found in the Prophet’s tradition are up to the good faith judgment of the judicial branch of government or Islamic jurists/scholars.

Conclusion: Islamic penal code apparently seems tough but its inclination for fairness and equality ensures social justice and its prohibitive nature has potentials to award the society a crime free and orderly environment.