The Position of Hanafi Fiqh in the Islamic Countries’ Criminal Law: A Case Study on Afghanistan, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates

Islamic fiqh has played a key role in the penal system of some Islamic countries. In this regard, Hanafi is one of the four traditional major Sunni schools (maddhab ) of Islamic fiqh that has been able to create a role in the legislative and judicial system of many countries, including Hanafi and other religions. In the form of a case study and using a descriptive analytical approach, the present research studies the criminal law of the three countries - Afghanistan as a Hanafi country, and Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as two non-Hanafi countries. In Afghanistan and the UAE, Hanafi jurisprudence is not codified by law, but courts have jurisdiction to make decisions based on Shari'a mansoos punishments , although in practice in Afghanistan, unlike in the UAE, the permission to recourse to Hanafi fiqh in the criminal fields has been rather symbolic and has not been objectified. Conversely, in Sudan, the provisions of Hanafi fiqh have been crystallized into the enacted regulations and have taken on the aspect of the rights of the subject