الحدود
al-Ḥudūd
The fixed limits and penalties set by God or the Prophet for six offences: intoxication, theft, armed rebellion, adultery, false accusation of adultery and apostasy.
What it means
Ḥudūd is the plural of ḥadd, meaning a limit or boundary. The Quran speaks of “the limits of God” (2:229) for the bounds that a believer must not cross. In the law, the word names the penalties that God or the Prophet (peace be upon him) fixed for particular offences. Faruqi lists six: intoxication, theft, armed rebellion, adultery, false accusation of adultery, and apostasy. The classical jurists differed on the exact list and on the basis for some items. They also surrounded these penalties with strict conditions of proof and treated any doubt as a reason not to apply them. They are matters for a court and never for private individuals.
Often misunderstood as
The word is often translated as “Islamic criminal code” or simply “punishments”, which hides that the root meaning is limits.
What the sources say
The Quran gives penalties for theft (5:38), for those who wage war against society (5:33) and for false accusation (24:4), and it sets out the case of adultery in surah 24. Jurists drew the other penalties from the Prophet’s practice and debated them at length.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 53, listed as AL ḤUDŪD. The definition is restated here.