Islamic Teachings and Decriminalization

Subject Areas : Criminal jurisprudence

Mohammad Ghaffari ¹ , Rahim Nobahar ²

1 - Ph.D. Candidate in Criminal Law and Criminology, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
2 - Department of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran

Received: 2023-07-06 Accepted : 2023-09-13 Published : 2023-09-21

Keywords: Islamic criminal law, criminalization, social control, Ultima Ratio principle.&lrm, taʿzirāat,

Abstract :

Abstract: This article tries to shed light on some Islamic foundations and concepts ‎according to which decriminalization becomes either permissible or necessary. Among ‎those foundations is insistence of Islamic teachings on different rights and freedoms of ‎citizens and particularly those return to their privacy. Islamic teachings also insist ‎promotion of good and virtue through free choosing of citizens rather than coercive ‎and external bans and restrictions. This approach, in its turn, requires a minimalistic ‎criminalization and occasionally decriminalization. Sometimes, experimental findings ‎achieved from criminalization suggest decriminalization. Religiously, these experiments ‎are valuable and cannot be belittled or ignored. Decriminalization in its Islamic reading, ‎however, in no way, consists with removal of blame from behaviours which are ‎religiously condemned and evaluated as evil. What is religiously assumed as vice cannot ‎be normalized or destigmatized. However, since criminalization follows some practical ‎considerations, every single evil is not, necessarily, a crime. Moreover, fighting evils is ‎not limited to criminalization or insistence on keeping a behaviour criminal.‎Keywords: Islamic criminal law, criminalization, social control, taʿzirāat, Ultima Ratio ‎principle.‎