Ta'zir

Discretionary punishment, set by a judge for offences that carry no fixed penalty.

Also written · Tazir · Taazir · Tazirat · Tazeer · Taazeer · Tezir · discretionary punishment · judicial discretion · correction · chastisement

The meaning

What Ta'zir means in Islam

The word means correction. It covers the vast majority of wrongdoing, from fraud and bribery to public nuisance, and it can be a warning, a fine, imprisonment or public rebuke. The judge weighs the person, the offence and the circumstances, and most jurists hold that ta'zir must stay below the level of a hadd. This flexible category, and not the hudud, is where classical Islamic criminal justice actually did its daily work.

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Read beside it

Words that sit beside it

HududThe small set of fixed penalties named in revelation, hedged about with very strict proof.حُدود
QadiA judge in an Islamic court, whose ruling binds, unlike a mufti's opinion.قاضٍ
QisasEqual retaliation for murder or injury, which the victim's family may always waive for compensation.قِصاص
'UrfLocal custom, which fiqh accepts as a decider where revelation has left a matter open.عُرْف