Fundamentalists Differences in the Rules Relating to the Discriminating boy and Their Contemporary Jurisprudential Applications

Abstract

Childhood is an important stage in Islamic legislation. Scholars and jurists addressed youth issues with more care and interest in many of the laws of jurisprudence in terms of qur’anic laws of worship, of transactions (Al-Muamalat), of family, of offenses and fixed punishments. The researcher finds that most of researchers' interest, in the past and present, regarding the discriminating boy is focused on the Jurisprudential aspect only. Thus, the researcher investigates fundamentalists differences in the rules relating to the discriminating boy, and how these differences seriously affected many central issues of Islamic jurisprudence as well as their impact on the secondary issues of jurisprudence based on those fundamentalist differences.

This research defines the discriminating and the non-discriminating boy, the difference between them, and the pubescent. It also shows that the basis of legal responsibility(Al-Takleef) in Islamic legislation is legal age and sanity, not perception which differs from one child to another according to the upbringing, environment, and culture. So, it is impossible to decide arbitrarily on the point intended by the legislator. Therefore, this has been connected to legal age and sanity.

The research conflates the rules regarding the discriminating boyinto three comprehensive ones; no legal responsibility (Takleef)before legal age; the juvenile's saying doesn't count; and the juvenile’s deed is to be considered.  The researcher gives some applications by mentioning the branches of jurisprudence based on those rules. He also explains how the legislation takes into account what is beneficial to public interest in the behavior of the discriminating boy, maintains it, and avoids the consequential damage to society of his wrong sayings and deeds, which are insignificant and become void.