Tazir
In Islamic Law, tazir (ta'zeer or ta'zir, ) refers to punishment for offenses at the discretion of the judge (Qadi) or ruler of the state. It is one of three major types of punishments or sanctions under Sharia Islamic law — "hadd", "qisas" and "ta'zir". The punishments for the Hadd offenses are fixed by the Qur'an or Hadith (i.e. "defined by God"), qisas allow equal retaliation in cases of intentional bodily harm, while ta'zir refers to punishments applied to the other offenses for which no punishment is specified in the Qur'an or the Hadith or is not punishable under either qisas  or hudud. Constant committing of minor sins or the major sins that do not require greater punishment, which are described as wickedness (Fisq) in fiqh terminology, are punished by the judge's discretion, without a certain limit and measure. In tazir punishments, there is no obligation to prove the crime by witnessing or similar mechanisms. Overview. The classical Islamic legal tradition did not have a separate category for criminal law as does modern law. The classical Islamic jurisprudence typically divided the subject matter of law into four "quarters", that is rituals, sales, marriage, and injuries. In modern usage, Islamic criminal  law has been extracted and collated from that classical Islamic jurisprudence literature into three categories of rules: Scripture. The word tazir is not used in the Quran or the Hadith, in the sense that modern Islamic criminal law uses it. However, in several verses of the Quran, crimes are identified, punishment of the accused indicated, but no specific punishment is described. These instances led early Islamic scholars to interpret the Quran as requiring discretionary punishment of certain offenses, namely Tazir. Example specific verses from the Quran that support taazir are, Examples of Tazir offenses. Tazir offenses are broadly grouped into  two sub-categories in Islamic literature. The first are those offenses that have the same nature but do not exactly meet the complete requirements of hudud crimes. Examples of such Tazir offenses include thefts among relatives, or attempted but unsuccessful robbery, fornication that does not include penetration, and homosexual contacts such as kissing that does not result in fornication. The second sub-category of Tazir offenses relate to offenses committed by an individual that violate the behavior demanded in the Quran and the Hadiths. Examples of the second sub-category include false testimony, loaning money or any property to another  person for interest in addition to principal, any acts that threaten or damage the public order or Muslim community or Islam. The fourteenth century Islamic jurist Ibn Taymiyyah included any form of disobedience as a Tazir offense, although his views were not accepted widely and listed several examples where there is no legal penalty in Sharia: Numerous other offenses are included in Tazir category. Tazir punishments. Tazir punishments were common in Sharia courts. Punishments vary with the nature of crime and include a prison term, flogging, a fine, banishment, and seizure of property. The sixteenth-century Egyptian jurist Ibn Nujaym  said that taʿzīr could consist of lashing, slapping, rubbing the ears, a stern telling-off, disparagement short of slander, or an angry look from the judge. Execution is allowed in cases such as practices which split the Muslim community, espionage on behalf of an enemy of the Muslim state. All four schools of "fiqh" ("Madhhab"), namely Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali, permit the death penalty at the discretion of the state or "Qadi", for certain Tazir offenses if it is proven by at two least witnesses or a self confession. Brunei introduced Tazir into its Syariah Penal Code Order effective  2014. Tazir crimes in Brunei now include offenses such as failing to perform Friday prayers by anyone above 15 years old, any Muslim disrespecting the month of Ramadan, and khalwat (dating or any form of close proximity between unrelated members of opposite sex). Iran introduced Tazir into its legal code after the 1979 Revolution, naming the section as "Qanon-e Tazir". These Tazir laws allow prosecution of offenses such as illicit kissing, failing to wear proper head dress such as "hejab", and making critical statements against judges and members of the Council of Guardians.