The Reintroduction of Islamic Criminal Law in the Late Twentieth Century
Questions for Seminar:
- Why have the hudud punishments proved so alluring for some modern Islamists?
- How does the application of Islamic criminal law today compare with its application in the Ottoman Empire and other pre-modern contexts?
Assigned Reading:
Rudolph Peters, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law, chapter 5, “Islamic Criminal Law Today.”
Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Vanja Hamzic, Control and Sexuality: The Revival of Zina Laws in Muslim Contexts, a report by Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Read the following chapters: “Criminalizing Sexuality: Zina Laws as Violence against Women”; “Iran”; and “Pakistan.”
Further Reading:
Charles Kennedy, "Islamic Legal Reform and the Status of Women in Pakistan," Journal of Islamic Studies 2 (1991), 45-55.
Hamid Kusha, The Sacred Law of Islam: A Case Study of Women's Treatment in the Islamic Republic of Iran's Criminal Justice System (Ashgate, 2002).
Aharon Layish & Gabriel Warburg, The Reinstatement of Islamic Law in Sudan under Numayri (Brill, 2002).
Rubya Mehdi, The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan (Routledge, 2013).
Rudolph Peters, "The Islamization of Criminal Law: A Comparative Analysis," Die Welt des Islams 34 (1994), 246-74.
Rudolph Peters, Islamic Criminal Law in Nigeria (Spectrum, 2003).
Tahir Wasti, The Application of Islamic Criminal Law in Pakistan: Sharia in Practice (Brill, 2009).
Anita Weiss, Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application of Islamic Laws in a Modern State (Syracuse UP, 1986).