Crime, punishment and justice
Islamic Studies · GCSE · The School
Aims, not just penalties
Islamic discussion of punishment names several aims: deterrence, protection of society, retribution proportionate to the wrong, and reformation of the offender. Forgiveness is explicitly praised — the Quran repeatedly presents pardon as better than exacting a right (for example 42:40). Any answer that presents only penalties has missed most of the material.
Three things students confuse
The TEXT (what the Quran and hadith say), the CLASSICAL LAW (how scholars over centuries interpreted it, including very high evidential thresholds that made severe penalties rare), and MODERN STATES (what particular governments do today, which varies enormously and is often criticised by Muslim scholars themselves). Blurring these three produces answers that are inaccurate about all of them.
Balance in a contested question
On capital punishment, corporal punishment or the treatment of offenders, present the range: Muslims who support strict application, Muslims who argue the conditions are almost never met, and Muslims who hold that a state must act within its own law. Then evaluate with reasons. That is the answer structure, and it is also the honest description of the community.
(1) SCRIPTURE: what the Quran and Sunnah state. (2) CLASSICAL LAW: what jurists derived — including evidential thresholds so demanding that the severest penalties were rarely applicable, and a principle of averting them where doubt existed. (3) MODERN STATES: what particular governments do today, which varies enormously and is contested by Muslim scholars. Mixing the three is the commonest way to lose marks on this topic, in both directions.
Intention, and the door that stays open
Islamic teaching on wrongdoing gives intention a central place: an act is weighed with what the person meant by it, and the same outward act can carry very different moral weight. Alongside this sits tawbah, repentance — described as available to anyone who turns back, with conditions usually stated as stopping the act, regretting it, resolving not to return, and where a person has been wronged, restoring their right. This matters for exam answers about the purpose of punishment: a tradition that keeps repentance permanently open is describing reformation as a real aim rather than a stated one.
Writing about a topic you find difficult
Take this exam statement: "The only purpose of punishment in Islam is to punish the offender." A weak answer calls it wrong and moves on. A strong answer states the view fairly first. Retribution, meaning payback, has a basis in the text, because 42:40 says harm is to be met with an equal harm. Then it adds evidence and labels each source. First comes a modern scholar's account, which is not the Quran's text. In chapter 12 of his 2019 book Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law, Mohammad Hashim Kamali says the aims of punishment, especially of the hudud, are mainly deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation and reform. The hudud are the punishments classical law sets for certain named crimes. Second comes the Quran on forgiveness. Verse 42:40 also says whoever forgives and puts things right will have a reward from God. Verse 42:43 says patient forgiveness is one of the greatest things. The commentator Ibn Kathir reads 42:40 as setting equal punishment as justice while recommending forgiveness as better. These verses praise pardon. They do not list what a penalty is for. The conclusion: the statement fails as written, because retribution is only one of the four aims Kamali names, and the Quran praises pardon. A student who argued the other way would have to answer Kamali's list.