I Support Hudud Law!

Hudud is the word often used in Islamic literature for the bounds of acceptable behaviour and the punishments for serious crimes. In Islamic law or Sharia, hudud usually refers to the class of punishments that are fixed for certain crimes that are considered to be "claims of God." They include theft, fornication, consumption of alcohol.

Hudud offenses are one of four different kinds in Islamic Penal Law:

• Qisas - meaning retaliation, and following the biblical principle of "an eye for an eye.

• "Diyya - compensation paid to the heirs of a victim. In Arabic the word means both blood money and ransom.

• hudud - fixed punishments
• Tazir - punishment, usually corporal, administered at the discretion of the judge

Hudud offenses are defined as "claims of God," and therefore the sovereign was held to have a responsibility to punish them. All other offenses were defined as "claims of [His] servants," and responsibility for prosecution rested on the victim. This includes murder, which was treated as a private dispute between the murderer and the victim's heirs. The heirs had the right to compensation and to demand execution of the murderer, but they could also choose to forgive.

Hudud offenses include:

• Drinking alcohol
• Theft
• Highway robbery
  
• Illegal sexual intercourse/zina
  
• False accusation of zina
• Rebellion against the rule
• Apostasy includes blasphemy. (Unlike the five offenses listed above, not all jurists consider apostasy to be a hudud offense).

The punishments vary according to the status of the offender - Muslims generally receive harsher punishments than non-Muslims, free people receive harsher punishments than slaves, and in the case of zina', married people receive harsher punishments than unmarried.

In brief, the punishments include:

• Capital punishments - by sword/crucifixion (for highway robbery with homicide), by stoning (for zina' when the offenders are mature, married Muslims)
• Amputation of hands or feet (for theft and highway robbery without homicide)
• Flogging with a varying number of strokes (for drinking, zina' when the offenders are unmarried or not Muslims, and false accusations of zina')

Only eye-witness testimony and confession were admitted. For eye-witness testimony, the number of witnesses required was doubled from Islamic law's usual standard of two to four. Moreover, only the testimony of free adult Muslim males was acceptable (in non-hudud cases the testimony of women, non-Muslims and slaves could be admitted in certain circumstances).

A confession had to be repeated four times, the confessor had to be in a healthy state of mind, and he or she could retract the confession at any point before punishment. However, while these standards of proof made hudud punishments very difficult to apply in practice, an offender could still be sentenced to corporal punishment at the discretion of the judge, if he or she was found guilty but the standards of proof required for hudud punishments could not be met.

Malaysia with the rising crime in society and immoral behavior of youngsters must look forward to implement Hudud law. I think no one fear of Hudud if he or she doesn’t break the law. Those who fear on Hudud law consider as fear on truth and justice.