Discourse Analysis of Taʿzīr Punishments in the Iranian Penal System

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Hamidreza DaneshNari ¹
• MohammadSadeq Mohammadi Ghahfarokhi ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

² Master’s Graduate in Islamic Studies and Law, Faculty of Islamic Studies and Law, Imam Sadiq University (A.S.), Tehran, Iran

10.22067/jfiqh.2023.81829.1568

Abstract

Following the Islamic Revolution and the emphasis on the Islamization of laws, Taʿzīr punishments were officially recognized for the first time in the Islamic Penal Code. The introduction and expansion of Taʿzīr punishments within Iran’s criminal law system has raised important questions regarding their interpretation and developments. Therefore, identifying the influential discourses in the formation of Taʿzīr punishments and the factors contributing to their hegemony (dominance) are key issues in the philosophical understanding of these punishments. The primary objective of this study is to clarify the role and impact of current discourses on the transformations occurring in the field of Taʿzīr punishments, employing the discourse analysis methodFindings reveal that three discourses have influenced the transformations of Taʿzīr punishments: 1) governmental jurisprudence 2) traditional jurisprudence and 3) penal modernism. In the early stages of the formation of Taʿzīr punishments, the governmental and traditional approaches were opposing discourses. During this period, the dominance of governmental jurisprudence over traditional jurisprudence led to the recognition of the paradigms advocated by supporters of governmental jurisprudence, such as the determination of Taʿzīr by the ruling authority, the specification of Taʿzīr, and their diversity as fundamental principles of Taʿzīr punishments. However, the findings of empirical research in criminology and penology, on the one hand, and the flexibility of Taʿzīr punishments under the principle “al-ta'zīru bimā yarahu al-ḥākīm” (Taʿzīr is at the discretion of the ruler) on the other hand have contributed to making the discourse of penal modernism also a dominant discourse in the realm of of Taʿzīr punishments.

Keywords

• Taʿzīr punishment
• governmental jurisprudence
• traditional jurisprudence
• penal modernism
• discourse analysis

Main Subjects

• Jurisprudence and criminal law

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©2025 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

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