Aplikasi Sunnah Terhadap Garis Panduan Hukuman Rotan di Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia

There is a significant number of Hadith and Sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w in regard to the importance of education with additional examples set by the Prophet s.a.w himself. Among the scope of education emphasized by the Prophet s.a.w is early childhood education. Islamic scholars are of the opinion that corporal punishment or caning is the last resort in educating children. However, corporal punishment at schools has been polemical, where strong arguments have been made on the premises that the punishment is humiliating, stringent, inhumane and abusive. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine the application of Sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w in the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) school corporal punishment guidelines in Malaysia. This qualitative study examined the data collected from classical fiqh texts (primarily hadith) concerning corporal punishment or canning as well as data from various MOE school corporal guidelines, e.g. MOE circulars on student offences and canning. Content analysis was employed as both data collection and data analysis methods. A generic and inductive qualitative approach was used to fulfill the objectives of this study. This study discovered that corporal punishment is strongly recognized by the nas. Nonetheless, the punishment is not only restricted to caning. In fact, the findings demonstrate that in the nas, the punishment was described as a means to educate, instead of merely to punish. Despite the recognition of corporal punishment as a means to educate, the findings show that there was no evidence to support that the Prophet s.a.w has executed such punishment on his children and wives, in the context of education. On the other hand, analysis of the MOE’s guidelines revealed that corporal punishment is recognized as a means of education. However, the data shows that MOE’s guidelines are not fully consistent with the nas, i.e Sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w on corporal punishment as a means of education. Thus, it is strongly recommended that some improvements need to be made to ensure that the objective of corporal punishment is in line with the Sunnah, i.e. for the punishment to be applied as a means of education instead of solely a means of punishment.