The Scope of the Death Penalty under the Sharia Law

The death penalty is one of the core issues which have been widely discussed around the world. As capital punishment has been the part of the Islamic legal system, the Quran and hadith explicitly established the penalties in various serious crimes. A majority of the world‟s nations has abolished the death penalties from their constitutions, but most of the Islamic countries firmly believe in this system. One root cause of it is that the Holy Quran and hadith provide the justification for capital punishment. Further, several Islamic countries where Islam has the status of the state religion, allow the application of the death penalty. This work has prompted us to expose that the Islamic penal code is well-established in the legal and political systems of Islamic countries and the impact of religious traditions have an indirect impact on the implication of the death sentence. Since the death penalty is even now broadly established in Muslim countries, there is also increasing support in several of these states to abolish of the death penalty. Some secular activists have distorted the Quranic verses dealing with the death penalty to support their instance. For different reasons, they claim that political governments may use the death penalty as cover to suppress their political rivals. Our findings reveal that secular propaganda against the Islamic penal system is based on wrong assumptions and a result of Islamophobia. This research article can provide a logical discussion on the issue of capital punishment, rooted in the true spirit of the Islamic punishment system.

Employment – Growth Nexus Jobless Growth

The slow growth in employment during the present and past few economic recoveries around the world has generated interest among economic researchers in the phenomenon of jobless growth. In developing countries the potential of economic growth to generate employment has often been questioned. The present study is assesses this potential in Pakistan which has relied mainly on economic growth in the past to generate employment. Using a production function, an employment demand model is derived in which Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the main explanatory variable. This model is estimated using annual time series data for the period 1974-2008, first at the national level and then by pooling data for the major sectors of the economy. Econometric estimates of the parameters of this model have been used to calculate a threshold level of GDP growth below which growth in employment is expected to be stagnant. The analysis of national data indicates that the economic growth in Pakistan has generally been slower than the level of growth required to generate employment growth. This result is mainly attributed to below threshold level of growth in the manufacturing sector of the economy which is regarded as one of the main engines of economic growth by economic planners in Pakistan. Among the potential factors behind the above results are labour productivity, sectoral shifts in the labour market, and the macroeconomic policies of the last three decades. Directions for future research and policy implications of results are also discussed in this study.