Islam and Human Rights — Page 97
Article 5 97 usefulness of different types of punishment. One or two considerations might, however, be set down as relevant in this context. Imprisonment as a penalty for offences, and the estab lishment of prisons and all their attendant paraphernalia, were comparatively unknown in the world of early Islam, and it is a debatable question even today whether a term of imprisonment is preferable in all cases and situations to, say, a flogging. The Quran prescribes flogging for certain offences, e. g. fornication or adultery whether on the part of a male or a female (24:3) and slanderous accusation of unchastity against a woman (24:5). The severity of the penalty pre scribed for these offences will be more readily appreciated if it is remembered that the safeguarding of moral values and standards is among the primary concerns of religion. Such appreciation, however, is not so easily forthcoming in those sophisticated modem societies in which unchastity on the part of men is considered only a normal manifestation of virility and even on the part of a woman is no longer looked upon with serious disfavour. A Superintendent of Education has recently announced that he does not regard premarital sexual intercourse as morally objectionable in the case of senior school students, and Deans of Universities,