All streams of political Islam are competing for the need to apply the punishments under the Islamic law, which includes the so-called al-Ḥudūd al-Sharʿiyah, as a divine system that cannot be replaced by penal systems.

In the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood's rule of Sudan, which lasted from June 1989 until the fall of their regime last April, the sanctions have been included in the Criminal Code since 1991. The penalties provided for in the law included flogging, stoning, amputation and murder for drinking, adultery, and apostasy. At the start of the act, the leaders of the group said that the step represents the return of true Islam, which remained absent during the reigns of national rule that followed the departure of the British colonialism in 1956.