Match the correct pairs of punishment and forms of punishment in the Mughal Judicial System. Column 'A' (Punishment) a. Hadd b. Tazir c. Qisas d. Tashir Column 'B' (Forms of Punishment) i. Tit for Tat ii. Defamation, to expose to disgrace iii. Warning, admonish or banishment iv. Death penalty, amputation
- (1)a – iii, b – i, c – iv, d – ii
- (2)a – ii, b – iii, c – i, d – iv
- (3)a – iv, b – iii, c – i, d – ii
- (4)a – iii, b – i, c – ii, d – iv
Correct — option (3): statement a – iv, b – iii, c – i, d – ii. Mughal criminal law worked with categories drawn from Islamic jurisprudence, and each carried its own logic of punishment. Hadd covered offences classed as crimes against God or against public order in the strictest sense, and its punishments were fixed rather than discretionary — the death penalty or amputation — so statement a pairs with iv. Tazir was the residual, discretionary category: offences not covered by hadd or qisas, left to the judge's own judgement, with penalties ranging from a warning or admonition up to banishment depending on the offence and the judge's assessment — so statement b pairs with iii. Qisas governed wilful killing and serious bodily harm, and its guiding principle was strict reciprocity — life for life, limb for limb, literally 'tit for tat' — with the option for the victim's family to accept monetary compensation (diya) instead, so statement c pairs with i. Tashir was public shaming, designed to expose the offender to disgrace before the community — historically including being paraded through the streets — matching the description 'defamation, to expose to disgrace', so statement d pairs with ii.
- (1)a – iii, b – i, c – iv, d – ii — Sends Hadd to 'warning, admonish or banishment' (iii) and Tazir to 'tit for tat' (i), which reverses the defining feature of each category: Hadd is precisely the fixed, severe category (death penalty or amputation), not the flexible, lenient one, and Tazir is precisely the discretionary category rather than the strict-reciprocity one that belongs to Qisas. It also misplaces Qisas at iv, the fixed-severity slot that belongs to Hadd. Three of the four pairs invert the actual logic of the system.
- (2)a – ii, b – iii, c – i, d – iv — Gets Tazir and Qisas right (b – iii, c – i) but swaps Hadd and Tashir: it sends Hadd to 'defamation, to expose to disgrace' (ii) and Tashir to 'death penalty, amputation' (iv). Hadd's fixed, severe punishments are its defining feature and cannot be replaced with mere public shaming, while Tashir, by definition a punishment of exposure and disgrace rather than physical penalty, cannot be equated with death or amputation. Two correct pairs make this option look close, but the remaining two are exactly reversed.
- (4)a – iii, b – i, c – ii, d – iv — Repeats the same Hadd/Tazir inversion as option (1) — Hadd sent to the lenient category (iii), Tazir to the strict-reciprocity category (i) — and additionally sends Qisas to 'defamation, to expose to disgrace' (ii) and Tashir to 'death penalty, amputation' (iv). Qisas's defining principle is reciprocal retribution for killing or bodily harm, not public shaming, and Tashir is shaming, not capital or corporal punishment — every one of the four pairs is displaced from its correct partner.
The Mughal judicial system, like other Islamicate legal systems of the period, organised criminal offences into distinct categories according to whose right the offence was seen to violate and how much discretion the judge (qazi) had in fixing the punishment. Hadd offences were treated as violations of a fixed, divinely sanctioned boundary and so carried fixed, severe punishments; Qisas offences were violations of a private individual's body or life and were remedied by strict reciprocity, tempered by the possibility of monetary settlement; Tazir was the flexible residual category covering everything else, left to judicial discretion; and Tashir was a public, reputational punishment used to shame an offender before the community rather than to injure the body.
This is a bijective matching item — four punishment names, four consequences, one-to-one — and the efficient way through it is to anchor on the two categories with the sharpest, least confusable definitions first. Hadd's 'fixed and severe' character and Qisas's 'reciprocal retribution' character are both distinctive enough to recall directly; once those two are placed, Tazir (discretionary, lenient-to-moderate) and Tashir (public shaming) are what remain, and their descriptions in the right-hand column make the final pairing straightforward.
- Hadd: offences against God or public order, carrying fixed, severe punishments such as the death penalty or amputation, with no judicial discretion over the sentence.
- Tazir: the residual, discretionary category for offences not covered by hadd or qisas, with punishments ranging from a warning or admonition up to banishment, decided at the judge's discretion.
- Qisas: retribution for wilful killing or serious bodily harm, governed by the principle of strict reciprocity — life for life, limb for limb — with diya (monetary compensation) available if the victim's family agreed to it.
- Tashir: public shaming intended to expose the offender to disgrace before the community, historically including being paraded through the streets.
- The qazi (judge) administered this system at the local level, applying these categories within the broader framework of Mughal criminal administration.
Hadd (fixed, severe) and Tazir (discretionary) sit at opposite ends — don't swap them.
- Confusing Hadd (fixed, severe) with Tazir (discretionary, flexible) — they sit at opposite ends of how much judicial discretion is allowed
- Assuming Tashir, a shaming punishment, must be more severe than it is because it appears alongside categories that include the death penalty
- Forgetting that Qisas specifically means reciprocity ('tit for tat'), not a general term for any serious punishment
MPSC's medieval administration questions frequently test a small set of technical terms against their precise definitions in a matching format, and the four Mughal punishment categories are a recurring example because their names are unfamiliar but their defining logic — fixed vs discretionary, bodily vs reputational — is learnable as a compact table rather than four isolated facts.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Mughal judicial system, which category of punishment allowed the victim's family to accept monetary compensation (diya) instead of strict retaliation?
- (a)Hadd
- (b)Tazir
- (c)Qisas
- (d)Tashir
Answer(c) Qisas — the principle of 'life for life, limb for limb' governed wilful killing and serious bodily harm, but the victim's family could accept diya, monetary compensation, in place of literal retaliation. Hadd punishments were fixed and non-negotiable; Tazir was discretionary; Tashir was public shaming.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which category of Mughal punishment was left entirely to the discretion of the qazi, covering offences not classified under hadd or qisas?
- (a)Tazir
- (b)Qisas
- (c)Hadd
- (d)Tashir
Answer(a) Tazir — the residual, discretionary category, with penalties ranging from a warning to banishment depending on the judge's assessment. Hadd punishments were fixed by definition, Qisas followed the principle of strict reciprocity, and Tashir was specifically a punishment of public disgrace.