Punishment in the View ofIslam and Psychology

Traditionally, there have been some controversies among Muslim scholars and various schools of psychology and of education, over ‘punishment’ and the extent to which it is effective. Psychologists usually do not approve corporeal or physical punishment and consider it to have some negative effects such as fear, incapability of learning good behavior, developing in others the character of doing harms to others, speaking aggressively to the one who punishes, the substitution of one negative response for another negative response which can serve as a behavioral model for others.Children’s punishment should fit the crime. If the child is not aware of the punishment for his ill behavior or if he is awakened of his or her folly before he or she is punished, no one is allowed to punish him/her. Children should not be punished if the punisher tries to punish in order to curb his or her own anger. Rather, it would be more appropriate to make some such alternatives as ‘satiation’, ‘time out’, ‘reinforcement of incompatible behavior’ and ‘ignoring children’s ill-behavior’ and so on.