Amid Taliban’s return in Afghanistan, a look at sharia law in the Muslim world

With the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, there are fears that the Islamist group will reimpose their harsh interpretation of sharia regulation.

Most Muslim nations incorporate components of sharia of their authorized methods, notably in household regulation.

However only a few perform its punishments, generally known as hudud, which even Muslim students disagree on.

What’s sharia regulation?

Sharia is a system of spiritual regulation drawn from the Quran and the hadiths — the phrases or actions of the Prophet Mohammed.

The way it needs to be utilized has been a topic of dispute between conservative and liberal Muslims, and it stays extremely contested.

Some features have been broadly accepted — similar to the way it applies to banking — with Western firms providing Islamic finance merchandise to draw Muslim clients.

A decide’s assistant notes the assertion of a complainant, heart, at an Islamic Shariyat Courtroom in Ahmadabad, India, on November 25, 2008. (AP/Ajit Solanki)

Hudud, which implies “boundaries” in Arabic, is the punishment meted out for sins similar to adultery, rape, homosexuality, theft and homicide.

Excessive punishments are not often carried out, as many offenses should be proved by a confession or by having been witnessed by a number of grownup Muslim males.

Nations that observe excessive sharia regulation embrace:

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Saudi Arabia

Sharia is the idea for all Saudi regulation and, till pretty just lately, it was frequent for excessive hudud punishments to be carried out in public.

Gay acts are punishable by execution — though often the penalty is proscribed to flogging and imprisonment.

Beheadings and amputations by sword had been often carried out on Fridays, earlier than noon prayers. In excessive circumstances, the condemned particular person is usually crucified after execution.

The regulation additionally permits for literal eye-for-an-eye punishment, generally known as “qisas,” in circumstances of private harm.

However the household of a homicide sufferer can pardon a condemned particular person within the Sunni kingdom — typically in change for blood cash.

Iran

The authorized system of the Islamic republic — which, aside from China, executes extra individuals than some other nation — rests on sharia, however with some vital variations.

An Iranian officer lashes a person, convicted of rape, on the northeastern metropolis of Sabzevar, Iran, on January 16, 2013. (AP/Hossein Esmaeli)

Judges are allowed to weigh circumstantial proof, and, not like classical sharia, Iran depends closely on imprisonment.

Nonetheless, the Shiite state does make use of a variety of sharia punishments, with Amnesty Worldwide criticizing it in 2017 for its “persistent use of merciless and inhuman punishments, together with floggings, amputations and compelled blinding.”

Brunei

The tiny and immensely wealthy absolute monarchy drew worldwide outrage when it grew to become the primary nation in Southeast Asia to impose excessive sharia in 2019.

Brunei’s sultan later mentioned that some measures wouldn’t be enforced, together with demise by stoning for homosexual intercourse and adultery.

On this April 23, 2013 photograph, a baby walks close to Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, one of many landmarks of Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei. (AP/Vincent Thian)

Afghanistan

Since their takeover, the Taliban have indicated they could loosen up their beforehand brutal interpretations of sharia.

The final Taliban regime confined ladies and not using a male escort to their houses and made them put on the all-covering burqa.

Excessive hudud punishments had been additionally routinely carried out throughout their 5 years in energy.

Indonesia

Indonesia’s conservative Aceh area is the one province on this planet’s largest Muslim-majority nation to have Islamic regulation.

Public flogging is frequent for playing, consuming alcohol, adultery, and having homosexual intercourse. However the central authorities refuses to sanction beheading.

Aceh adopted spiritual regulation after it was granted autonomy in 2001, in a bid by Jakarta to quell a long-running separatist insurgency.

On this March 20, 2017 photograph, a Sharia regulation official whips a person convicted of adultery with a rattan cane in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. (AP/Heri Juanda)

Sudan

Sudan adopted sharia regulation in 1983, however, since then, it has been patchily carried out, activists say.

Demise by stoning stays on the statute books, however has not been carried out in a long time — though activists declare tons of of ladies are flogged yearly for “immoral conduct.”

Pakistan

Navy dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq launched the widely-criticized Hudood Ordinances in 1979, as a part of his sweeping Islamization of Pakistan.

Sharia courts implementing the legal guidelines run parallel to the British-based penal code, however are not often used. They cowl adultery, false accusations in courtroom, property crimes, and prohibition of medication and alcohol.

In 2006, MPs handed the Girls Safety Legislation, eradicating rape and adultery circumstances from the spiritual system.

Sharia courtroom verdicts can now even be appealed within the mainstream courts.

A Muslim man, left, explains his case as two witnesses look on throughout a continuing of a divorce case at an Islamic Shariyat Courtroom in Ahmadabad, India, on November 25, 2008. (AP/Ajit Solanki)

Nigeria

Some 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states — all within the north — apply sharia to prison circumstances. Courts can order amputations, though few have ever been carried out.

Qatar

Flogging remains to be on the statute books as a punishment for Muslims who drink alcohol or have illicit sexual relations, however isn’t used. The punishment for adultery is technically 100 lashes.

Adultery can also be punishable by demise when it entails a Muslim lady and a non-Muslim man. However, in actuality, capital punishment is just utilized in very uncommon homicide circumstances when the sufferer’s household doesn’t present mercy.

The Islamic State

Earlier than its “caliphate” was crushed in 2019, the Islamic State group utilized a fiercely brutal type of sharia within the components of Syria and Iraq it managed.

It ran its personal courts, carried out public beheadings, stonings and amputations, pushing males suspected of being homosexual from the highest of tall buildings.

Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab additionally implement a brutal type of sharia.