حدود
ḥudūd
The fixed punishments of Islamic law for a small number of offences, hedged with strict conditions.
What it means
The word means “limits”. The offences are theft, highway robbery, adultery, false accusation of adultery and, for some jurists, drinking and apostasy. The Prophet said: “Avoid the hudud wherever you can” (al-Tirmidhi, in other versions “avert”). Proof is demanding, any doubt prevents them, and repentance can remove them.
What the sources say
Umar suspended the penalty for theft during a famine. Many modern scholars hold the hudud are rarely applicable without conditions that are hard to meet.