IMAM AL-QARADAWI AND THE RENEWAL OF THE JURISPRUDENCE OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT (STONING, APOSTASY, ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION, ABANDONING PRAYER) - AN ANALYTICAL STUDY

Abstract

The study sheds light on Imam Al-Qaradhawi's approach to the renewal of the jurisprudence of corporal punishment (hudud) in Islamic revealed law. It thus aims to explore his contributions regarding the teleological understanding of punishments in Islam in that they cope with crime before it occurs. This study seeks to elucidate the relationship between the penalties dealt with here and the key rules on which Imam Al-Qaradhawi founded his renewal approach to the jurisprudence of hudud, whether with respect to the origins of punishment, or its classification, or the ways of its application and the extent of the Imam's commitment to such rules, clarifying at the same time the Imam's opinion on issues related to the subject matter of this study. The study seeks to solve the problem of the relationship of punishments with the system of legislation in Islam, through the jurisprudence of objectives and the possibility of renewal in the jurisprudence of punishments in accordance with the controls and governing rules upon which Imam al-Qaradhawi relied in renewing jurisprudence in general and the jurisprudence of punishments in particular, and monitoring the impact of renewing the jurisprudence of punishments on contemporary Islamic discourse, leading to its features. Renewal according to Imam Al-Qaradhawi regarding the punishments specified within the scope of the study. The research pursues a descriptive, analytical and inductive approach that infers derived the original questions from the works and discussions of Imam Al-Qaradawi, all as it commits to a critical historical approach to categorizing hadiths and historical texts. This research concludes that Imam al-Qaradhawi’s renewal of the jurisprudence of hudud manifests in his novel categorization of the degree of certain penalties from penalties measured by the revealed text’s prescription to penalties measured by way of legal reasoning. This study also concludes that the Imam conceives of the latter as fortifying penalties whose estimation ought to be left to the discretion of the judge or whomever adjudicate in his place by way of the rules of Islamic jurisprudence that control the system of Islamic legislation. The significance of this study lies in that it establishes Imam Al-Qaradhawi’s approach to renewing the jurisprudence of hudud and its trace and role in modern Islamic discourse through showing his conception of corporal penalties in Islam and linking it to the Islamic system of legislation.