Islamic Teachings and Decriminalization
Subject Areas : Criminal jurisprudence
Mohammad Ghaffari
1
(Ph.D. Candidate in Criminal Law and Criminology, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran)
Rahim Nobahar
2
(Department of Islamic Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran)
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.
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