Middle Eastern Harshness in the Application of Death Penalty: Why Israel Is the Only Abolitionist?

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on the Death Penalty: An Agenda for the Next Generation of Capital Punishment Research

Abstract

With the advent of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1970s, more and more Islamic states began objecting to international norms for human rights and abolition of the death penalty, as being contrary to Shari'a, the historically formulated traditional law of Islam. The question is why contemporary Islamic penal systems are so cruel and short on mercy when Israel in Israel great efforts are made to guarantee that prisoners are treated humanly. This comparative study reaches back to the classical Islam and Jewish law to trace how and why Islamic and Jewish practices came to diverge.

Authors

• Sanaz Alasti, Lamar University

• Amir Fakhravar, Lamar University

• Brittany Wood, Lamar University