ISLAMABAD, May 26: A three-day workshop on Islamic criminal law in the age of globalization opened here on Thursday with religious scholars from a number of countries taking part. President Prevez Musharraf inaugurated the workshop.

Dr Khalid Masud, the Chairman for the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), which has organized the workshop, invited the assembled scholars to address the issue, observing that Muslims generally view globalization with suspicion.

In his key note lecture, Egyptian scholar Dr Hasan Hanafi said modernity existed in every culture and argued that in the context of Muslims “modern questions were more important than classical answers”.

Dr Hanafi said the application of Islamic penal code required the existence of an Islamic state which is conditioned by the presence of Wali, or guarantor. Since there was no such state, he said, the application of the penal code might be temporarily suspended.

In his view, the punishment of cutting off the hand of a thief should be applied to men who steal public money but not to those who are unemployed or hungry.

Dr Manzoor Ahmad from Pakistan said laws became Islamic if they fulfilled the value standards set by Islam and were efficacious in achieving the goals desired by

Shariat and were obeyed with the motivation of achieving salvation.

Dutch scholar Dr Ruud Peters from Amsterdam University made the profound observation that the establishment of an Islamic state was presented as a religious duty for all Muslims with the prospect of having “a pious or virtuous community on earth that enjoys God’s favour and is actively aided by Him to overcome poverty and humiliation”.

Dr Peters favoured revising the Islamic penal code by applying Ijtihad, or bringing new legislation “as effective in protecting values and interests as classical Islamic criminal law did and takes into account those revealed texts whose meanings were unambiguous, stable, and not subject to interpretation”.

Foreign scholars invited to the workshop, included Dr Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), Dr Tahir Mahmood (India), Prof Dr Masykuri (Indonesia), Dr Syed Khalid Rashid (Malaysia), Dr Ruud Peters (Netherlands), Dr Ibrahim Sulaiman and Dr Ibrahim Naiya Suda (Nigeria).

The Pakistani scholars participating are Dr Manzoor Ahmad, Maulana Mohsin Naqvi, Prof Akhtar Siddiqui and Prof Abdul Rashid and Dr Mohammad Farooq Khan.