Islam, the monarchy and criminal law in Brunei: the Syariah Penal Code Order, 2013

Abstract

Efforts to expand the application of Islamic criminal law in Muslim majority states to implement hudud laws present governments with difficult choices between modern human rights norms and conservative local understandings of Islamic tradition. The governments of Muslim majority countries in Southeast Asia used to be very reluctant to embrace hudud but that has begun to change in recent decades. In Brunei, the introduction of a sweeping and conservative Syariah Penal Code Order that includes hudud punishments, such as amputation and stoning to death, has been driven by this tiny oil-rich state’s absolute monarchy. It sees the Code as further entrenching the state ideology of ‘Malay Muslim Mo..