REVISITING ISLAMIC PUNISHMENT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

The demand for infusing Islamic law, particularly Islamic criminal law, into the administration of justice and the judicial system in Muslim countries has become an important issue today. Numerous conferences and seminars on Islamic criminal law have been held on ways of introducing this law. Our neighbour, Brunei as well as Aceh declared its decision to enforce an Islamic penal system in the respective states. For many Muslims they believe that implementation of hudud are the essential requirement for consideration to be a Muslim state. In reality, the infliction of hudud punishments is almost impossible due to the very strict requirements regarding the procedure of establishing the crimes. On contrary, it is obvious that the scope of discretionary punishment or ta‘zir is very wide as compared to the limited nature of hudud and qisas. Besides, ta‘zir crimes and punishments are left unspecified in the Shariah texts so as to make them appropriate to the changing requirements of a society as it develops. This paper seeks to highlight this issue so as to indicate the flexibility of Islamic criminal law which can be adapted according to different times and places and remains compatible with the demands of the modern world