Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-Shariyya

Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-Shariyya (وجوب تطبيق الحدود الشرعية, The Obligation of Implementing the Prescribed Sharia Penalties) is a legal and polemical treatise by the Salafi scholar Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd al-Khaliq (d. 1442 AH / 2020 CE), advocating the mandatory implementation of Islamic penal law (hudud) and refuting modern objections against it Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…+1.

Background and Composition

The book originated from a series of articles written by Ibn Abd al-Khaliq for the Kuwaiti daily newspaper al-Watan Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…. Prompted by contemporary debates in the media concerning the Islamic legal system, the author gathered and expanded these writings into an independent treatise, completing the first edition in Kuwait in Rajab 1399 AH (1979 CE) Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-….

A second edition was prepared in Safar 1404 AH (November 1983 CE), to which the author added an explicit refutation of arguments published in al-Watan by Dr. Muhammad Su'ad Jalal, who had contested the validity of the stoning penalty (rajm) for married adulterers Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…+1.

Contents and Core Themes

The work argues that applying Islamic penal codes is a strict religious duty (fard) rather than an optional or merely recommended policy, drawing upon scriptural evidence from the Quran and Sunnah as well as rational arguments Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…+1. Ibn Abd al-Khaliq contends that implementing prescribed penalties safeguards society, deters criminal acts, and brings divine blessings and economic prosperity Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…+1.

In the course of his critique of man-made and secular legal frameworks, the author challenges the modern reliance on long-term imprisonment, arguing that extended confinement is not an authentic codified sharia sanction but merely a limited discretionary measure (ta'zir) Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-…. In connection with this, he rejects contemporary legal rulings that grant prisoners conjugal visits with their spouses, arguing that such measures attempt to legitimize fundamentally non-Islamic penal structures Wujub Tatbiq al-Hudud al-….

Scholarly Reception and Critique

The treatise drew critical attention from contemporary scholars, notably the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz Majmu Fatawa wa Maqalat M…+1. Ibn Baz took issue with a specific argument in the book wherein Ibn Abd al-Khaliq maintained that a society must first eliminate the socioeconomic causes of crime—such as monopolies, injustice, poverty, and pervasive vice—before enforcing hudud penalties on perpetrators of theft or adultery Majmu Fatawa wa Maqalat M…+1.

Ibn Baz criticized this condition as contrary to the explicit texts of the Quran and Sunnah, which mandate the application of established penalties without conditioning them on prior societal reform, noting that the only relevant historical precedent was the temporary suspension of the theft penalty by Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab during the Year of Famine ('Am al-Ramada), which was an exceptional case of juristic reasoning Majmu Fatawa wa Maqalat M….