Extended Abstract

Background and Purpose

Nowadays, one of the challenges that sharia is facing is the claim that Islam has a biased view towards men's rights, and there is gender discrimination against women in Islamic law. The claimants have tried to justify their theory by presenting examples of jurisprudential rulings that at first seem to be discriminatory. In order to respond to this challenge in the field of criminal law, the Islamic legal system in the field of legislation to punish guilty women has been explained. So, after explaining the moral principles of legislation to punish guilty women in Islamic jurisprudence, the criminal rules that are different between men and women have been examined, and the reasons for such rules have been explained. The purpose of the study is to show that differences and distinctions in the rulings do not indicate that the rulings of the Shari'a are discriminatory; rather, what can be acknowledged is that some Shari'a rulings are different between men and women because they differ in biological and psychological characteristics.

Literature Review

In recent years, research has been conducted on the general terms of women's rights and defending the Sharia teaching in this field which have often been explains in detail rulings such as permitting polygamy, the blood money of a woman which is half the blood money of a man, prohibition of some jobs such as being a judge for women, etc, which have created a suspicion that Islam has a biased view towards men's right. However, this study focuses on the jurisprudential heritage in order to explain the Islamic approach to women’s rights in criminal law and it analyzes this subject based on ethical and fair principles. The authors searched in reputable scientific databases and didn't find any research that had inductively collected the stances of the debate with an analytical and problem-oriented view and presented the moral and intellectual reasons for the rulings by referring to the opinions of thinkers. An article entitled "Discrimination on Women's Punishment in Jurisprudence and the Rules of Iran" has been written, which only addresses examples of women's criminal sentences and does not say anything about the general principles of punishment for women in Islamic jurisprudence. However, in the present study, at first, the moral principles of women's criminal sentences have been explained and then examples of the sentences that have been imposed based on these principles, have been stated. In addition, some of the examples presented in the present article, such as the quality of execution of the sentence and the place of detention of convicts, were not discussed in that article. Another point is that in the present article, examples have been analyzed based on ethics and justice, and in this article, there are jurisprudential arguments and different aspects of the discussion. In other the novelty of this article is that so far there has been no research in the Islamic legal system on the punishment of delinquent women that has been explained on the basis of ethics and justice.

Method

This study has been conducted using a descriptive-analytical method based on library resources. The type of the study is inductive and is organized by studying the written jurisprudential heritage and extracting women’s criminal sentences through the opinions of Imami jurists. The author has introduced the rulings in which the Islamic penal system differentiates between men and women and has tried to present the moral and intellectual aspects of these rulings and distinctions to the extent of human understanding.

Results

In this study, the ethical principles governing the legislation of punishments for women in Imami jurisprudence have been explained and women's specific criminal sentences in the field of public disclosure, expulsion , homosexuality, apostasy, the quality of the Hadd, the place of detention and delay in punishment in special circumstances have been stated. it is found that the legislation of punishment for women in Islam is based on the two principles: a dignified view of women and the observance of justice. Also it is found that Islamic Criminal law not only does not have a biased view of men but it can be seen from some of the rulings that this law seeks to facilitate and mitigate punishment for women.

Conclusion

Results sugget that some differences in criminal sentences imposed on women and men not only does not indicate discrimination in legislation, but also they originated from morality and justice in legislation and have entered into the teachings of the Shari'a due to the different undeniable genetic and psychological characteristics of men and women.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines 

This article has completely followed the ethics of publishing and has avoided such things as plagiarism, misbehavior and forgery. Also, this article has not been published elsewhere before and has not been submitted to another publication at the same time.

Funding: This article is not sponsored by any center. The authors did not receive any payment for this paper, and there is no commercial interest in this regard.

Authors’ contribution: Dr. Ali Mohammadian, is the first author of this article and Ms. Batoul Salahshour, is the second and corresponding author.

Conflict of interest: This research does not directly or indirectly conflict with the interests of any real or legal person.

Acknowledgments: Considering the use of comprehensive Ahl al-Bayt jurisprudence software to access jurisprudential sources, we would like to thank the Computer Research Center for Islamic Sciences, which has facilitated access to jurisprudential resources by providing useful and practical software.