Capital punishment - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Lange, Christian
Leiden
Brill
(4,000 words)
Capital punishment in Islamic law is specified for the crimes of apostasy, illicit sexual relations, brigandage, and intentional homicide. Despite the fact that the legal doctrine of the qāḍī 's "discretionary punishment" (taʿzīr) generally precludes the death penalty, Muslim jurists gradually concluded that the state may also execute people for reasons of expediency (siyāsa) . In classical Islamic political theory also, siyāsa served to justify capital punishment, and most executions in Islamic history have been justified on the grounds of siyāsa . In modern times, execution has become a key issue in