Contemporary Issues in Islamic Criminal & Humanitarian Law (A Comparative Study)

The Islamic religion is a global phenomenon and keeps expanding rapidly. Muslim law, like personal laws of other religious groups, is today facing several challenges from within the community as well as from outside. This is but natural in an era of unprecedented changes in societies everywhere. As a matter of fact, Islamic law like any other law is in need of reform. The urgency lies in the application of contemporary standards of principle of legality, equality, dignity and individual rights in matters relating to criminal law and marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardianship, maintenance and other social contemporary problems. Although religious scholars effectively terminated the practice of ijtihad five hundred years ago, the principles of interpretation are well established and hence; the need for contemporary interpretation is compelling. The practice of the Companions, the Successors and the leading Mujtahidun of the past tends to suggest that they enacted laws and took measures in pursuance of maslahah (issues) despite the lack of textual authority to validate them. Egypt is often taken as an example for a distinctively Islam nation and in the Western world it is often assumed that its legislation is based on Islamic principles. In recent years, the Iranian system has established the Exigency Council to resolve conflict between bodies like the Guardian Council and the Islamic Consultative Assembly, with regard to Islamic and criminal law's contemporary issues.