Encyclopedia of Islam

crime and punishment

A criminal act is one that involves a serious 

violation of social or moral laws and requires 

the state or some other official authority to hold 

legal proceedings and punish the guilty person or 

persons. The laws may be based on social norms 

and customs, legislation by political authorities, 

or interpretations of commandments attributed 

to a supramundane power or deity. A crime can 

therefore be defined as a threat to the social and 

political order or even as an offense against God.

In Islamic jurisprudence (

fiqh

)—based on 

Quranic revelation, the 

sUnna

 (custom) of m

Uham

-

mad

 and the first Muslims, the consensus of reli-

gious jurists, and legal reasoning—there are only 

six crimes that warrant punishment as offenses 

against God: 1) 

adUltery

, 2) false accusation of 

adultery, 3) drinking wine, 4) theft, 5) highway 

robbery, and 6) 

apostasy

 (opinion is not unani-

mous on this crime, however). The punishments 

for anyone found guilty of these crimes by a quali-

fied Muslim judge are severe; they are not left for 

God to decide, as is the case for lesser sins and 

transgressions, nor can they be reduced. Adultery 

is to be punished by flogging or death by stoning, 

false accusation of adultery and drinking wine by 

flogging, and theft by amputation of a hand or 

foot. According to most legal schools, apostasy 

and highway robbery involving homicide require 

the death penalty, but highway robbery without 

homicide is punished as a theft would be.

Such corporal punishments were called “God’s 

boundaries” (hudud Allah), a term borrowed from 

the q

Uran

, where it was used in reference to mar-

riage and family laws that should not be trans-

gressed (Q 2:187). In Islamic jurisprudence, the 

meaning expanded to include these corporal pun-

ishments, indicating that such punishments had 

the force of divine will behind them, not society’s. 

But classifying them as “boundaries” suggests that 

jurists had a sense that hudud cases had to meet 

stringent standards of justice before a judgment of 

guilt could be pronounced. Thus, in cases of adul-

tery, four male witnesses were stipulated, which 

made proving that such an offence had occurred 

difficult. Also, the penalty of flogging for bearing 

false witness in adultery cases legally protected 

the accused. In cases of theft, the punishment 

of amputation was not to be enforced when the 

perpetrator stole to stay alive or when the stolen 

property was of little value or illegal.

Homicide was condemned in the strongest 

terms in both the Quran and hadith, but it has 

not been classed as a crime that was subject to the 

hudud penalties. Premeditated murder was classed 

as a major sin forbidden by God that would be 

punished on J

Udgment

 d

ay

 (Q 4:93; 17:33; 25:68–

69). In addition, relatives of the victim were given 

the right of retaliation on the basis of the principle 

of “a life for a life,” and they were given the right 

to grant clemency, which could not be done when 

the crime was subject to the hudud penalties. In 

cases of manslaughter or unintentional homicide, 

the guilty party was required to compensate the 

family of the deceased for their loss by freeing 

a slave and paying a fine, or “blood money” (Q 

4:92). For other offenses, judges were allowed to 

impose punishments at their discretion, but in 

theory, punishment should not exceed the least of 

the hudud penalties in severity.

Most nations with Muslim-majority popula-

tions today have adopted criminal codes and penal 

systems that are based on Western models. A few 

selectively apply the prescribed Islamic punish-

ments, usually in conjunction with government 

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