Criminal Punishment in Islamic Societies: Empirical Study of Attitudes to Criminal Sentencing in Iran

Public opinion on criminal sentencing and aims of punishment has been surveyed mostly in Western countries. In non-Western countries, especially Islamic societies, little has been published, at least in Western journals, on these issues. In fact, no published study examining public views toward criminal sentences and the aims of punishments in Islamic societies may be located in any major database of Western literature. As a result many questions like the relationship between perceived purpose of criminal punishment and its severity and the interactions between the belief in Islam and its Shari’a (Islamic culture) and punitive attitude to criminality have remained unasked. Therefore, the meaning and motive behind the death penalty and other severe forms of punishment in Islamic countries remains unknown to scholars, whether within or outside these countries. This paper introduces, first, Shari’a sentencing laws and practices in some Islamic societies and then, by drawing on a survey administered in Iran in 2008, tries to show and explain the variations in attitudes to Shari’a criminal laws and different forms of punishment, mostly based on Shari’a, across different genders and professions (judges, lawyers, students, Tulab and police).