Prof. Edi Rosman and the Renewal of Islamic Criminal Law
A formal appointment letter changed hands at the Grand Mercure Harmoni Hotel in Jakarta on July 13, 2026, marking a milestone not only in one academic's career but also in Indonesia's ongoing discourse on Islamic legal thought.
Indonesia's Minister of Religious Affairs presented the decree appointing Prof Dr Edi Rosman as Professor of Islamic Criminal Law at Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) Sjech M. Djamil Djambek Bukittinggi (Sjech M. Djamil Djambek State Islamic University Bukittinggi) recognizing decades of scholarship in the field of Fiqh Jinayah, or Islamic criminal jurisprudence.
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| Prof. Dr. Edi Rosman |
For many academics, attaining a professorship represents the culmination of years of teaching and research. For Prof Edi, however, the appointment also signals a new phase in an intellectual pursuit that has long defined his work: exploring how Islamic criminal law can remain firmly rooted in the Islamic scholarly tradition while responding to the realities of a rapidly changing society.
Public discussions of Islamic criminal law have often been dominated by images of hudud punishments, qisas (retaliation), or public caning. Such perceptions have tended to reduce the discipline to its penal provisions, reinforcing the view that it is inseparable from medieval legal texts and resistant to contemporary change.
Yet within the broader tradition of Islamic jurisprudence, law has never been understood merely as a catalogue of punishments. It has also been regarded as an instrument for achieving justice. Throughout history, the practice of ijtihad—independent legal reasoning—has enabled Islamic law to engage with evolving social realities while remaining anchored in its foundational principles. It is within this intellectual tradition that Prof Edi's scholarship finds its place.
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| The writer (right) with Prof. Edi Rosman (second from right) at the Annual Meeting of Asian Islamic Universities Association (AIUA) in Jakarta, late June 2026. |
His academic career has been marked by teaching, research and scholarly publications focusing on contemporary developments in Islamic law. Across numerous articles, he has consistently examined the relationship between legal texts, social transformation and the continuing need for Islamic jurisprudence to address emerging challenges.
Those challenges have become increasingly complex in the digital age. Cybercrime, cryptocurrency-related fraud, theft of digital assets and environmental destruction on a large scale are among issues scarcely envisaged in classical legal literature. They raise new questions about how Islamic criminal law can respond to technological and social change without compromising its underlying principles of justice.
Within contemporary Islamic legal scholarship, renewal is generally understood not as altering the core principles of Shariah, but as reinterpreting and applying them through the framework of maqasid al-shariah—the higher objectives of Islamic law. This approach places the protection of life, intellect, property, dignity and the public good at its centre, while allowing governments, through the doctrine of ta'zir, to determine appropriate sanctions in accordance with changing societal needs.
In Indonesia, these debates have gained renewed relevance as the national legal system increasingly embraces restorative justice. Recent reforms within the country's law enforcement institutions have placed greater emphasis on reconciliation and social recovery alongside punishment. Comparable concepts have long existed within Islamic legal tradition through qisas and diyat, which provide mechanisms for balancing the interests of victims, offenders and the wider community.
The implementation of the Qanun Jinayat in Aceh has likewise become an important case study. Increasingly, attention has shifted beyond the nature of prescribed punishments to broader questions of substantive justice, the protection of vulnerable groups and the compatibility of Islamic criminal law with Indonesia's plural constitutional order.
For West Sumatra, Prof Edi's appointment also reinforces a longstanding intellectual tradition shaped by the interaction between customary law and Islamic teachings. The Minangkabau philosophy of Adat Basandi Syarak, Syarak Basandi Kitabullah—custom founded upon Islamic law, and Islamic law founded upon the Qur'an—has long demonstrated that Islamic values can develop alongside local wisdom without losing their vitality.
By the afternoon, the appointment ceremony had concluded. Yet the more demanding task was only beginning: ensuring that Islamic criminal law continues to evolve as a living tradition of justice—one capable of engaging with contemporary realities while remaining faithful to the ethical foundations from which it emerged. [IRWANDI]
Dr. Irwandi
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