the name of Allah the beneficent the
most merciful I'd like to welcome you
dear viewers to another in our series
contemporary
issues in which we look at a variety of
uh ideas or concepts which have become
very popular in the world today uh
promoted by uh Western Civilization
accepted by Muslim countries to varying
degrees or by uh the intellectual Elite
or the educated elements of the society
you know where these ideas have become
very popular and they
challenge the
fundamental concepts which are held by
Islam uh with regards to these various
uh
issues uh the topic that we'll be
looking at today is is a very vast topic
and it's a topic concerning criminal
justice the Islamic legal system and how
its laws are
applied um what people tend to focus on
is that the criminal justice system of
Islam is very harsh uh it's referred to
as being medieval you know uh primitive
you know a variety of different terms
used because the the image given of the
is application of Islamic law is really
one of chopping off of hands and
chopping off of heads and lashings and
stonings and you know this is the
general image given that you know this
is just something uh impractical in our
time something which uh modern
civilization has left behind uh no
longer uh applicable and of no no
benefit really something which was uh
primitive is the general impression
given
however when we look at the issue of
Criminal Justice and perhaps at the core
of it is the issue of capital punishment
which has been banned by the UN as well
as the
ECC uh we look at it and how it is
developed in Western Civilization for
example in America uh and and the West
in general the the main goals behind
uh Western pinology we could say were
three one
retribution that is
justification looking to the past that
is punishment or
Revenge two deterrence and that was
looking to the Future and that is
prevention and three
Reformation to reform the individual to
make that individual a better uh
personality better character to be
released back in society now these were
the basic principles behind Western
penology
however from as early as the as the late
30s we find a report of the departmental
committee on corporal punishment in
England uh stating that corporal
punishment was of no value as a detern
and should be
abolished in 1952 Justice Hugo Black the
United States of America he wrote that
retribution is no longer the dominant
objective of criminal law reformation
and Rehabilitation of offenders have
become important goals of criminal Juris
prudence and in 1972 Justice Thurgood
Marshall this is again of the United
States the Supreme Court he wrote
punishment for the sake of Retribution
is not permissible under the the eth
amendment in the same year California's
capital punishment law was declared
unconstitutional for some criminologists
re uh
Reformation has become synonymous with
cure the criminal was no longer
considered to be a bad man but a sick
man and the convict needed treatment he
was genuinely ill perhaps physically
almost certainly mentally and
psychologically this was the uh approach
which uh Western criminal justice took
and in 1965 in England the death penalty
uh was
abolished however uh some seven uh some
5 years later in
1970 when the Home Secretary announced
Ed that
172 convicted murderers had been
released from prison since 1960 that's
over a period of 10 years he pointed out
that most of them had only served 9
years or less for their of their
statutory life
sentence only five served 12 or more
years nine served six or less and one
completed only 6 months
and these were not cases of mistaken
judgments where they were revising
judgments these are people who were
convicted murderers but due to the
change in attitudes uh good behavior in
prison people were being let out
somebody murdered somebody and was let
out after 6
months
12 uh or nine of them were let out uh
after 6 years or less after murdering
somebody and of course the reality is
that these individuals after being let
out into the public a number of them
ended up killing others and ended up
back in jail again for further
murders today Western penologists have
admitted that the penal system has
utterly failed in reforming and
rehabilitating criminals the reality is
that the petty Criminal Who end enters
into the
system sits spends time with
well-trained hardened criminals and he
comes out prepared now he's got all the
information he needs to go on to Major
crime so it becomes a training ground
for
criminals and the society ends up paying
for their Crimes by providing them with
housing food clothing and shelter for
the period of their sentence so the
society pays for their
crime in the Islamic uh systems
punishments are based or placed
basically in three
categories one category known as H and
these are the fixed punishments which
have been set by Allah in the Quran or
by the statements of the Prophet
Muhammad wasallam and these are
considered to be rights of God
the there are six basic offenses which
come under that heading those that is of
drinking
alcohol theft armed robbery illicit sex
and that includes homosexual pedophilic
and bestiality type uh sexual
deviations uh sexual
slander apostasy all of these are
included in this
system the second group
are referred to as kasas or
retaliatory punishments where an injury
or murder takes place and a an
equivalent punishment is set for that
and this is considered under the
headings of the rights of
people and the third category is that of
t or what may be called discretionary
punishments where no specific
punishments are set aside in the law
where the judge May uh depending on his
own uh ruling depending on how he sees
the seriousness of a particular crime he
may uh prescribe of any particular
punishment
now of course these punishments cannot
reach the level of those of the H
themselves the ones which are fixed by
Allah but in terms of the application of
Islamic law
because when we're going to judge uh is
this applicable is it relevant is it
beneficial Etc we have to look to see
what are the effects what you find is
that during the Ottoman administration
of the AR Arabian Peninsula the hudud
punishments were
discontinued but by the late 20s after
the Saudi regime reintroduced them the
crime rate had fell noticeably and this
has continued basically in Saudi Arabia
you find the level of crime is quite low
if you compare you know 8 million people
in uh in England in the the the uh s
Arabia compare them to 8 million people
in New York City and you compare compare
the crime rates I mean it's like night
and day the number of murders which take
place you know for execution who people
executed for murder you know which is
for quickly shortly shortly after the
crime is actually committed you know the
number of people were executed murderers
in in Saudi Arabia in in a year it be
equivalent to those who are murders
which take place in New York City in a
week I mean we're talking about vast
differences whether it is robbery theft
you know the variety of different crimes
you find that the the the the this the
difference is is is
enormous uh there's also uh another
example which was shown within 6 months
after the Shar that is Islamic law was
introduced in
Sudan
and at the time Jaa numiri The ruler the
president he had released 13,000
prisoners uh decreeing that uh Islamic
law was not applied in their sentencing
so there are some 13,000 prisoners were
rece were released in spite of all that
within 6 months of the application of
Shar they found that crime had decreased
by over
40% this is the
proof application of Islamic law does
have a deterrent effect in the society
itself what we find also with regards to
murder I mean there's
a different approach to to it in in um
in the western system where murder is
left up to the state to decide what do
we do with this person who's committed
murder whereas from the Islamic P point
of view it's a issue of the rights of
human beings where they have the right
to decide if this person is to be let
free then it's th those people who have
suffered the family that has suffered
the loss they're the ones who have the
right to decide in this
regard some Western uh criminologists
you know have challenged have spoken
against this change in Attitude
uh for example good har in 1953 had
stated retribution in punishment is an
expression of the community's
disapproval of crime and if this
retribution is not given recognition
then the disapproval may also disappear
very very uh wise statement and um it
indicates it's challenging the the trend
which was taking place in the west
another legist Leo page had written
law exists for the protection of the
community it is not necessary to show
that capital punishment is an absolute
preventative of murder or even that it
is only a deterrent if it can be shown
that it is more effective as a deterr
than any other punishment then I shall
be satisfied that it should be retained
to hold otherwise is surely to forget
the innocent victims of Murder in the
interest of their murderers
and I have no doubt at all that the fear
of The Gallows is the most powerful of
all deterrents this is the these are the
reflections of some Western leges you
know in the face of this change in
attitude in the west towards uh
punishing uh murderers and uh in fact
over the last uh 30 years 20 especially
the last 20 years the the um application
of capital punishment has been
reintroduced into most of the states or
many of the states in the United States
and you know as it's picking up we find
again a a new wave which is spearheaded
by the pope and others you know against
the application of uh capital
punishment from this American
perspective uh where capital
punishment is applied in a somewhat
arbitrary way there is some validity to
objections raised against
it uh when studies were done back in the
60s and it showed that black Americans
seemed to be sentenced to death for
crimes that white Americans were not
they both commit the same crime but the
chances of a black American being
sentenced to death was far greater so
many of them were on death row greatly
disproportionate to their presence in
the society in the number of crimes in
which they committed you know they the
Civil Rights Movement challenged this
issue of application of the death death
penalty because it seemed to be unfair
you know to some degree this kind of uh
practice continues so there is a an
element of of uh reason here for not
applying it but not applying it in this
unjust just way but the issue of not
applying it to somebody who murders is
in fact really an encouragement to
murder in the Society of course when
Islamic law was applied you know in any
given Society it does not stop what they
call Crimes of Passion a person out of
you know just exploding on an instant
killed somebody I mean no matter what
laws you set up it's not going to stop
that person that you know who explodes
and does that but it will stop the
premeditated murders it will cut it down
because when a person is making his
plots and his plans and he thinks of the
consequences if he thinks the
consequences are well okay maybe I'll
have to go to jail for a few years if
they catch me that's one thing but now
if they think that hey I will lose my
life if they catch me and that's another
thing and people who plan do think these
things over and I'm sure that knowing
that your life will be taken will cause
people to think a lot of people to think
twice Thrice
Etc but as I said from the Islamic
perspective when it comes to murder and
how the law is
applied uh there are
options it is not automatic execution
but execution is there that's a first
option but then there is also Dia that
is where the family accepts that the
person pays a
uh compensation for the loss or for the
death of that that person then uh this
option is there and as well as the
person may be pardoned but this is left
up to the family to those who suffer the
loss this is not up to the state to make
this kind of
decision so where the family members
agree to let somebody off without any
punishment they can do it without
payment of any uh fine they can do it
it's up to them and this is to allow for
circumstances which may have happen in
the family where where the family knows
full well you know that the father or
the son or whatever who was involved in
this crime you know deserved it or they
had created a circumstance which
precipitated this maybe somebody a
relative or some friend or a neighbor
whatever ended up killing somebody who
was goated into it or something like
this they are the ones who can make that
kind of decision whereas as a general
rule the the law will be
applied uh swiftly once the evidence is
there but again the evidence has to be
100% there cannot be doubt it's not just
a question of fingerprints or a murder
weapon there has to be evidence which is
incontrovertible it cannot be you know
uh you cannot find out later on oh this
was a mistake no the law is only applied
when it is absolutely sure as the
prophet M wasallam had said leave aside
the H the fixed law
Whenever there is
doubt this is as far as we can go in
this segment of the program dear viewers
and we hope to continue looking into
some issues of the punishments in
Islamic law in our coming
segments thank you for being with us and
I bid you
farewell