T J Winter on Islamic Law

Islamic law inculcates the principle of deterrence: prevention, Muslims believe, is better than cure, particularly since a cure for individual criminality is in any case seldom achieved. The punishment for premeditated murder [qatl al-‘amd] is death. In Muslim countries, crime rates are only a small fraction of what they have become elsewhere, partly because some Muslim states enforce Islamic law, and partly because the sense of accountability taught by religion is the only solid foundation for morality. Areas of the Muslim world where the legal systems imposed by the former colonial powers are still in force, and where the lethal virus of secularity has been injected deeply into society, are suffering from a growing incidence of crime, and there is a growing awareness that this can only be combatted through a return to Islamic law and ethics, and the rejection of alien values.

Timothy John Winter (Abdal-Hakim Murad), The Seventy-Seven Branches of Faith: Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, The Quilliam Press, London, 1996, p. 28