ABSTRACT
At the centre of popular conceptions of Islam as a violent religion are the punishments carried out by regimes hoping to bolster both their domestic and international Islamic credentials. Pakistan under Zia and more recently the Afghan Taliban provide two South Asian examples of violence justified by reference to the implementation of SharƯ‘a law.1 The punishments of stoning for adultery and amputation for theft do indeed receive attention in the classical works of Islamic law. They belong to a class of punishments
called (sing. literally ‘boundaries’ or ‘limits’). For classical jurists, God has laid down in the Qur’Ɨn and through his Prophet that certain crimes attract these
though the severity of the punishments also means that the standard of proof required to convict a criminal is demanding in these cases.2 Once proven, the judge has
no choice but to implement the as it is a non-negotiable divine prescription. What has been explored less in both the popular and academic literature is the conception of these punishments in works of law (fiqh) and the complex of ideas which underpin the
theoretical elaboration of the In this paper, I examine how Muslim jurists, despite the rigid demands of the regulations, have developed a sophisticated
system whereby the are (semi-) rationalized and their implementation controlled, using as an example text a well-known Indian compendium of Islamic law. As such, this text represents an example of how pre-modern Muslim intellectuals engaged in discussions about violence and its justification. An analysis of a small portion of its contents enables me to make some tentative comments about the manner in which violence is discussed and legitimized in classical legal texts.
