f our available evidence of the application, or attempted application, of Islamic criminal procedure and penology in the modern world.
Even for these states, the actual information available regarding procedure and punishments is extremely limited. There is considerable reportage in the Western press of the more dramatic impositions of Islamic punishments of the sort that shock right thinking Westerners beheadings, stonings, amputations of hands. Actual, detailed information about the rates of imposition of various punishments, about criminal court procedures, and other features about criminal procedure and penology are, however, largely lacking. In many cases this information may not have been compiled at all; even if it has been, it is not readily available to investigators. Thus, our information on actual governmental practices is largely anecdotal rather than systematic; as we shall see below, our information on "normative" practice is even more limited for historical reasons which were outlined in the previous chapter.
The first general point we must note is that, everywhere in the Islamic world, the application of an Islamic criminal law and penology is a very recent development. Between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, most of the Muslim world fell under either Western colonial rule or "neo colonial" Western cultural domination. Under Western rule or influence, pre existing legal systems were in large measure scrapped and replaced by Western style practice in police procedure, courtrooms, and the philosophy and application of criminal punishment.
Even after direct Western domination began to recede, Western influence remained paramount in the criminal justice systems of the Islamic world. The first generation of post colonial leaders were, overwhelming, "modernizers." Their orientation might be "bourgeoise," (e.g., the early leadership of Pakistan) or it might be socialist revolutiona...