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Hudud (Arabic: حدود Ḥudūd, also transliterated hadud, hudood; plural of hadd, , lit. "limit, boundary") is an Islamic term referring to punishments which under Islamic law (shariah) are mandated and fixed by God. These punishments were rarely applied in pre-modern Islam, and their use in some modern states has been a source of controversy.

Traditional islamic jurisprudence divides crimes into offenses against God and those against man. The former are seen to violate God's hudud or "boundaries", and they are associated with punishments specified in the Quran and in some cases inferred from hadith. The offenses incurring hudud punishments are zina (unlawful sexual intercourse), unfounded accusations of zina, drinking alcohol, highway robbery, and some forms of theft. Jurists have differed as to whether apostasy and rebellion against a lawful Islamic ruler are hudud crimes.

Hudud punishments range from public lashing to publicly stoning to death, amputation of hands and crucifixion.Hudud crimes cannot be pardoned by the victim or by the state, and the punishments must be carried out in public. However, the evidentiary standards for these punishments were often impossibly high, and they were infrequently implemented in practice. For example, meeting hudud requirements for zina and theft was virtually impossible without a confession, which could be invalidated by a retraction. Based on a hadith, jurists stipulated that hudud punishments should be averted by the slightest doubts or ambiguities (shubuhat, sing. shubha). The harsher hudud punishments were meant to deter and to convey the gravity of offenses against God, rather than to be carried out.

During the 19th century, sharia-based criminal laws were replaced by statutes inspired by European models nearly everywhere in the Islamic world, except some particularly conservative regions such as the Arabian peninsula. The Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought along calls by Islamist movements for full implementation of sharia. Reinstatement of hudud punishments has had particular symbolic importance for these groups because of their Quranic origin, and their advocates have often disregarded the stringent traditional restrictions on their application. In practice, in the countries where hudud have been incorporated into the legal code under Islamist pressure, they have often been used sparingly or not at all, and their application has varied depending on local political climate. Their use has been a subject of criticism and debate.


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