The Effect of Insanity on Criminal Liability: In Islamic and English Law

There have always been different views on the effect that insanity should have no criminal responsibility of offenders. While in modern criminal law, the general understanding has always been that people suffering from insanity should not be held criminally responsible, some views have been expressed as recently as 1960 to the effect that mental illness should not be accepted as a release from criminal responsibility. This important issue has been discussed in this article and the position of English law and Islamic law on this subject has been analyzed, with a brief comparative table given in section 4 for easy reference.