The 2013 Islamic Penal Code of Iran marked a notable shift by categorizing baghy (armed rebellion) as a ḥadd crime for the first time, imposing the death penalty for acts perceived as undermining the Islamic Republic’s foundation. Nonetheless, this legislation presents considerable legal ambiguities and strays from well-established Shīʿa fiqh principles. The existence of conflicting fiqhī interpretations regarding similar actions has exacerbated the difficulties in legal understanding. This essay utilizes a normative approach rooted in ethical and fiqhī principles—such as exercising caution regarding life and property (iḥtiyāṭ-i dar dimāʾ) and safeguarding human dignity (karāmat-i insānī)—to advocate for reforms. It posits that baghy should no longer be classified as a ḥadd crime and calls for alternative strategies focused on negotiation, reconciliation, and leniency. By aligning the penal code with sharīʿa and human rights standards, these proposed reforms seek to address the legal and ethical dilemmas posed by the current laws.

This essay analyzes the contemporary evolution of Islamic criminal law, focusing primarily on the case of Morocco. It investigates the hermeneutical strategies employed by Islamic scholars and modern Muslim states to avoid the implementation of certain punishments drawn from ḥudūd, qiṣāṣ, and taʿzīr. The essay highlights, for instance, the role of “contextual and eclectic ijtihād” in adapting Islamic criminal law to modern contexts, and emphasizes the shift from ḥudūd to taʿzīr punishments across many Muslim countries. By focusing on the evolution of criminal law in Morocco and its connection to Islamic law, the essay explores the influence of Western legal systems and internal reform efforts, showing how traditional Islamic terminology and penalties have been mainly secularized while keeping the “Islamic” offenses. It sheds light on the dynamic interplay between tradition and modernity. The essay also addresses ongoing debates surrounding the death penalty in Morocco and its link to Islamic criminal law, particularly in light of the Kingdom’s recent vote in favor of a universal moratorium at the United Nations. Through this case study, the essay also highlights the role of modern Muslim states in balancing Islamic legal heritage with contemporary human rights standards, as well as the strategies used to “Islamize” the secularization of Islamic criminal law.

A polarizing symbol, the ḥudūd punishments have come to be conflated with the very essence of the sharīʿa by advocates and detractors alike. This article applies a decolonial critique to reform projects that call for the suspension of the ḥudūd, particularly those appealing to maqāṣid al-sharīʿa for internal legitimacy. Focusing on one such prominent call, I argue that the fixation on ḥudūd as divinely mandated punishments, in lieu of political punishment (taʿzīr) or the law of talion (qiṣāṣ), reflects a misplaced critique, revealing a colonial lens and the enduring coloniality of power. By analyzing ḥudūd enforcement in Saudi Arabia and Iran, I show their statistical rarity, theoretical inapplicability, and ethical dissonance with liberal sensibilities. I incorporate perspectives from contemporary and premodern scholars—including Ali Gomaa, ʿIzz al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Salām, and Abū al-Qāsim al-Burzulī—highlighting historical critiques and alternatives to ḥudūd. Additionally, I examine the broader implications of reform, particularly its implicit reliance on the carceral system, which remains unchallenged by reformist discourse. Engagement with critical theorists Michel Foucault, Angela Davis, and Michelle Alexander reveals the reformist concern with regulating the visibility of violence, rather than its elimination, as a hegemonic function of human rights discourse in defining the boundaries of legitimate debate.

This article examines two significant developments in Saudi criminal law during 2018 and 2019 respectively: the abolition of al-ḥukm bi-l-shubha (criminal convictions based on doubt) and the abolition of al-taʿzīr bi-l-jald (discretionary flogging punishments). The King undertook these developments as part of a broader plan to overhaul the Saudi justice system. Considering their grounding in fiqh, analyzing these abolished practices yields key insights: the intricate elements of ḥudūd enforcement; the susceptibility of ḥudūd jurisprudence to interpretive variances that yield unpredictable judicial outcomes; the inadequacy of ḥudūd as a capping threshold for taʿzīr offenses; and the possibility of implementing broad measures to guide the enforcement of ḥudūd, which may eventually evolve or find parallels in other jurisdictions.

Indonesia’s penal code, derived from Dutch colonial law, defines gambling as speculative betting on luck—a vague formulation that leaves room for ambiguity. Because Indonesia incorporates Islamic law into its legal system, clarifying the definition of gambling becomes especially crucial. However, divergent and often contradictory interpretations among Islamic jurists, particularly regarding whether gambling falls within the scope of punitive criminal law, complicate this task within Indonesia’s framework of legal pluralism. This study traces the evolving interaction among Islamic law, customary law (adat), and state laws in Indonesia, using the controversy over the Porkas/SDSB lotteries of the 1980s and 1990s as a case study. The central argument is that, although fiqh remains largely marginalized in the Indonesian Penal Code, adjudicators occasionally draw on Muslim legal sources—particularly adat laws—to define criminal offenses. Even in the SDSB case, however, European civil law exerted more influence over the criminalization of gambling than Islamic law. While muftis continue to play a limited role in penal legislation, despite having lesser political influence, their views often influence public opinion or institutionalized norms, further sidelining fiqh in defining the legal contours of gambling.