White-collar crimes, corruption and bribery in Islamic criminal law: Lacuna and conceivable Paths

The Islamic legal system differs from other legal traditions, such as civil law, based on codification or common law based on binding judicial precedents. In Islamic law, there is neither a history of codification of law, nor a reliance on binding legal precedents. The process of ijtihad (analogical deduction) in Islamic (Sharie‘a) law, however, is similar to case law model. In this regard, Muslim scholars interpretation of the Sharie‘a rules and divine (God)’s law were based on the Qur'anic provisions and the authentic Sunnah (Prophet Mohammad) traditions. The chief sources of Islamic criminal law are the Qur'an, Sunnah, ijma‘a (consensus), Qiyyas (individual reasoning) along with other supplementary sources.Where the principles of the Qur'an and Sunnah do not sufficiently resolve a legal issue, Muslim intellectuals use Fiqh (jurisprudence) which is the process of deducing and applying Sharie‘a values to reach a legal purpose and its methodologies and implementation are many, as numerous schools of jurisprudential (Sunni and Shie‘aa) thought (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali) transpires.4 This article will deal with the main principles of the Islamic criminal justice system regarding corruption and bribery from a descriptive viewpoint and will conclude that there is no real difference between the Islamic system and the positive justice mechanisms.