Overlapping Penalties in the Jurisprudence of the Four Schools of Thought: A Comparative Jurisprudential Study

The study of overlapping crimes and their punishment in Islamic jurisprudence deals with the issue of one person committing more than one crime, either at one time or in successive and different times. This crime may be of one gender, such as murder or theft, and a person may commit multiple crimes, such as stealing and drinking alcohol. This research looked at the opinions of the jurists in the penalties of such crimes. The research concluded that the jurists unanimously agreed that the criminal should not be punished if he committed several crimes of the same sex, except for one punishment only. For example, if the unmarried person commits the crimes of adultery and defamation, then one punishment is imposed on him, which is the punishment for adultery. The penalty of slander is included in it. If adultery is punished and then slandered after that, then the penalty of slander is applied to it as well. Overlapping means that the penalty for the lesser crime is included in the penalty for the major crime if they are committed together. In studying this subject, I followed the descriptive, analytical and comparative approach, where I explained the concept of overlap, its location, causes, and wording, the definition of punishment and its types, its wisdom and conditions, the penalties sections, the combination of crimes of one sex, the combination of crimes of different races, and how to fulfill multiple penalties, the principle Applications of multiple penalties with a statement of the sayings of the four schools of thought in each issue and a statement of the most correct of them.