HUDUD: A LAW CODE FOR CARAVAN MERCHANTS?

Abstract

In “Hudud: A Law Code for Caravan Merchants?”, Richard W. Bulliet challenges conventional assumptions about the origins of hudud—the fixed punishments in Islamic law. Rather than viewing them as a clearly defined set of Qur’anic injunctions, Bulliet argues that the hudud likely emerged as a practical legal framework shaped by the needs of early Muslim caravan merchants. He highlights the absence of a systematic Qur’anic listing of these crimes and notes that early jurists treated them as pre-existing without attributing authorship.

The article proposes that offenses such as theft, adultery, false accusation, highway banditry, wine-drinking, and apostasy reflect the specific concerns of long-distance traders: protection of goods, family honor during absence, trust in commercial relationships, and security on trade routes. Bulliet suggests that merchants may have selectively drawn from Qur’anic verses and prophetic traditions to construct a deterrent-based legal code suited to the realities of caravan life, where formal judicial systems were absent.

Ultimately, the study reframes hudud not as a purely theological construct, but as ahistorically contingent system influenced by economic and social conditions in early Islam.