In order to have what can be called an Islamic political system, it is not enough to simply implement some aspects of Islam, such as the criminal law, while neglecting some more fundamental issues, such as the freedom of the people to choose the rulers. In addition, if penalties are to be applied, they have to be applied impartially Similarly, it would not be necessarily representative of the true approach of Islam, to restart immediately implementing aspects of criminal law without allowing transitory periods of sufficient time to reform society and move it to the ideals of Islam. The philosophy of criminal law in Islam is not just punishment; it is the idea of creating reform in a society by removing the causes of crime before punishment can be applied. Therefore, before applying the laws, rulers should look into the wisdom of the legislation and the prerequisites to implementing those penalties. Unfortunately, the complete and perfect model of an Islamic political system does not exist today. But this does not mean that it is a utopian system that exists only in theory. It existed in a complete and perfect form during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and during the reign of the first four Rightly Guided Caliphs. There were ups and downs, but there were some periods when one could actually say that the model was either perfect or as close to perfection as could be expected. In later centuries, however, there have been lots of ups and downs and many de
