Punishment can be defined as the deliberate infliction of suffering on a supposed or actual offender for an offense such as a legal transgression. According to this definition, the punishment should involve inflicting a pain or a deprivation and should be implemented by governments. It has generally been agreed that a punishment requires a moral and legal justification. Therefore, as the eighteenth century appeared a lot of theories which tried to justify the punishment such as, Utilitarianism, Retributivism, and Rehabilitation. As well as, in Islamic thinking appeared a lot of theories when the Islamic scholars tried to understand the wisdom of the punishment in Islamic law. Nevertheless, it is looked so clear that Islamic scholars had confused between the aim of punishment and the justification of punishment, this is clear in their books when they tried to define the punishment with a citation the aim of punishment. For instance, Al-Mawardi defined the punishment as deterrence and disincentives for sins, by looking at such definition, it can be seen that Al-Mawardi had confused between the aim of punishment and the justification of punishment because he used the word deterrence when he justified the punishment. In this study, the researcher highlights utilitarian justifications and modern Islamic scholars of punishment.
