Wahidul Islam: The United States today stands as the most assertive wielder of sanctions power-often acting unilaterally, frequently bypassing the United Nations Security Council, and routinely shaping global compliance through financial dominance. Economic sanctions, once a blunt diplomatic tool, have evolved into a central instrument of coercive governance. Backed by control over the dollar and global payment systems, Washington has turned sanctions into a far-reaching architecture of pressure that extends well beyond its borders.

Yet, long before this modern machinery, history witnessed a different kind of coercion-the siege and boycott of Shiab Abi Talib. In that narrow gorge in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his clan endured a three-year social and economic boycott imposed by Quraysh. It was a total isolation-trade severed, marriages barred, supplies cut off. The objective was clear: break a community by strangling its lifelines.

The comparison with contemporary sanctions is unavoidable-and uncomfortable. Those early Muslims, subjected to collective punishment, internalized a moral lesson but did not replicate the method. Islamic teaching did not institutionalize siege economics as a legitimate instrument of power. Instead, it set ethical limits.

The Qur`an articulates a universal grammar of justice. It commands fairness ("Allah commands justice and good conduct," 16:90), restrains aggression ("do not transgress," 2:190), enforces fidelity to agreements (17:34), and rejects collective liability ("no bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another," 6:164). These are not abstract ideals-they are operational constraints. They forbid excess, protect the innocent, and anchor responsibility in individual accountability.

The Prophetic tradition reinforces this architecture. The Prophet forbade harm to non-combatants and warned against violating covenants, declaring that one who kills a protected person forfeits divine mercy. Economic ethics, too, are embedded in this framework-unjust restriction, exploitation, and harm are prohibited. Classical jurists distilled these into enduring doctrines: maslahah (public welfare), la darar wa la dirar (no harm, no reciprocating harm), and dar al-?ahd (the domain of treaty). Together, they form a jurisprudence where coercion is bounded, not weaponized.

Modern international law, codified through the United Nations, echoes many of these principles. The UN Charter enshrines sovereign equality (Article 2(1)), prohibits coercion (Article 2(4)), and permits sanctions only within a collective framework under Chapter VII. In this system, sanctions are not tools of convenience; they are exceptional measures, legitimized through multilateral consensus and intended to preserve international peace.

Here lies the fracture.

The US sanctions regime-administered through intricate legal instruments and enforced by global financial leverage-operates both within and beyond this multilateral order. Through primary and secondary sanctions, asset freezes, and exclusion from dollar-clearing systems, it compels compliance not just from adversaries but from allies and neutral actors alike. Its reach is extraterritorial; its effects, often indiscriminate.

This unilateralism raises profound legal and ethical tensions. When sanctions bypass the Security Council, they erode the collective decision-making architecture of the UN. When they extend jurisdiction globally, they challenge the principle of sovereignty. When they disrupt access to food, medicine, or basic services, they cross from targeted pressure into collective suffering.

From an Islamic perspective, the critique sharpens further. Sanctions that burden entire populations collide with the Qur`anic rejection of collective punishment. Measures that inflict disproportionate hardship violate the principle of restraint. Actions that disregard agreements undermine the sanctity of covenants. What is presented as strategic leverage appears, through this lens, as ethical overreach.

The humanitarian consequences are not theoretical. Broad sanctions regimes have repeatedly strained civilian life-weakening healthcare systems, constricting essential imports, and amplifying economic vulnerability. Islamic law, like modern human rights doctrine, places the protection of civilians at the center. Any policy that predictably harms the innocent sits on fragile moral ground.

History offers useful contrasts. The Ottoman Empire, for instance, did not develop sanctions as a systemic instrument. It employed embargoes, capitulations, and diplomatic isolation-but these were limited, bilateral, and context-bound. They lacked the global enforcement infrastructure that defines modern sanctions. There was no currency hegemony, no centralized financial choke point, no worldwide compliance network.

Even earlier, the Continental System of 1806-Napoleon`s attempt to economically isolate Britain-demonstrated both the ambition and the limits of pre-modern sanctions. Without a unified financial order, enforcement faltered. Smuggling thrived. The system strained allies more than enemies. It was coercion without architecture.

The transformation came with the Bretton Woods system, which institutionalized financial interdependence and elevated the U.S. dollar to global primacy. Sanctions, thereafter, were no longer merely political signals-they became enforceable realities.

Yet legality remains contested. Proponents argue that states retain the sovereign right to regulate trade and that sanctions function as lawful countermeasures, especially when multilateral bodies are paralyzed. Critics counter that unilateral sanctions lack UN authorization, impose extraterritorial obligations, and often produce disproportionate humanitarian harm. The law, in this domain, is unsettled-caught between power and principle.

A comparative lens clarifies the divergence:

Islamic jurisprudence centers justice, prohibits collective harm, and mandates proportionality.

The UN Charter institutionalizes collective responsibility and legal legitimacy.

US unilateral sanctions, by contrast, often prioritize strategic objectives, extend beyond territorial jurisdiction, and generate broad societal impact.

There is, undeniably, a shared moral vocabulary between Islamic law and the UN system-justice, restraint, protection of civilians, and fidelity to agreements. But unilateral sanctions, as currently practiced, sit uneasily within this shared space.

The lesson of Shiab Abi Talib lingers. A community once subjected to total boycott did not canonize the method. Instead, its foundational texts drew boundaries-clear, firm, and enduring-against excess and collective suffering.

In the end, the debate over sanctions is not merely legal; it is civilizational. It asks whether power will be disciplined by principle, whether coercion will yield to justice, and whether the global order will move toward collective legitimacy or remain anchored in unilateral reach.

Author: Wahidul Islam is a senior journalist, the Daily Observer