Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment in the Hadd Offence of Riddah Vis-a-Vis the Offence of Espionage

Abstract

Under Islamic law, all Islamic jurists held that riddah is a violation of the divine law. Riddah is established by the Quran and the hadith while its punishment is objectively rooted from the hadith. The punishment of riddah, according to the vast majority of Islamic jurists, is the death penalty. The Hadd offence of Riddah and its capital punishment is declared inconsistent with the universal principles and fundamental human rights by the family of 'civilized countries' coupled with a general heated argument against capital punishment. This has placed some 'liberal Muslims' on the adjacent line to the Hadd offence claiming its contradiction with ‘freedom of religion' known in Islamic law and absence of the express stipulation of the punishment in the Quran. Hence, this has led to a campaign for reformation of the hadd offence of riddah and Islamic law in whole. This poses a problem on the Muslim countries generally who are signatories to several International Human Rights treaties and Muslim scholars who adhered to the classical capital punishment on riddah. This has led various Islamic writers to compare the hadd offence of riddah with treason offence under the common law. The question of whether individual denunciation of Islam can amount to treason against the Islamic state becomes the critics’ pot of argument when the element of threat is lacking. The offence of espionage is a common-law offence which involves obtaining private information or secrets and disclosing that information to a foreign entity. Whether the disclosed information is useful or not, the offence stands against the individual spy and it attracts severe punishment including the death penalty. This offence is mostly used to ensure national security and loyalty. This work is aimed to justify the hadd offence of riddah and its punishment by comparing it with the offence of espionage and its punishment under common law. This will quench the claim of individualism among others raised by the critics. The analytical and doctrinal methodology will be adopted to ensure the justice of this work. Chapter one deals with a general introduction on the offences of riddah and espionage under Islamic and common law respectively couple with concept of capital punishment. Chapter two focuses on the hadd offence of riddah. Chapter three centres on offence of espionage. Chapter four compares and contrasts the offences of riddah and espionage. Nature of protection desired of the two offences, limitation to fundamental human rights, the concept of punishment and war under the two offences e.t.c. are the comparative elements used in this work. Through the above elements, this work will show the seriousness of ratio decidendi in the Hadd offence of Riddah and its higher degree over the offence of espionage. Therefore, if capital punishment is sustained in some cases of the offence of espionage, its sustainability in the Hadd offence of Riddah is more justified.