The Taliban’s approach to Islamic criminal law has little to do with the Islam

The Taliban are back in the saddle in Afghanistan and, with them, the harsh punishments as they were meted out in the Taliban’s previous time in power. In The Conversation, Professor of Arabic and Islam Studies Christian Lange explains how the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic criminal justice is misguided.

Islamic criminal law

According to Lange, Islamic jurists have distinguished between different types of crime using the traditional Islamic law (Sharia) as guidance. Hadd offences, which require severe penalties, are often centered in contemporary debates about Islamic criminal law. “There is no easy way to square traditional Islamic criminal law, especially hadd law, with the modern idea of universal human rights,” Lange states. However, he points out that this is why in all but a few Muslim-majority countries, penal law is not Islamic.

A philosophically informed discussion

It would be wrong to assume that the Taliban’s approach to Islamic criminal law reflects the true ‘spirit’ of Islamic law, Lange says. “The Taliban amputate the hands of thieves not because it is particularly “Islamic” to do so, but simply – and cruelly – because they can.” Though the fundamental tension between Islamic criminal law and the idea of universal human rights should provoke an open, philosophically informed discussion about how the common good is best achieved, Lange states that the principle commonly found in western and other legal systems that punishments are justified as long as they help to create a better society is not alien to Islamic law.