T
One of God's Names and attributes is "The Quite
pure" and He iscalled so because He is the source of all the sacred
things. ProphetMuhammad and the Holy Quran and the Imams and all the
ptherMessengers of God are revered by the faithful and Moslems as sacred
onesbecause of their being linked up with the source of purity i.e God
Almighty.This could be compared to blood and light that bring life and
brightness toall decrees and religious beliefs. Tus one could say that
sacredness is thepillar of religion.
Previous to 1375 when the Islamic penal codes were
passed by thelegislators , there were no explicit regulations concerning
insults againstsanctities. The only exception was the press law which
dealt withe any kind ofoffense by publications. The Islamic system
necessitated a morecomprehensive law to fill out the void. The result
was the law passed in 1375, which could relatively solve the problem.
Still one could find some degrees of vagueness and
deficiencies in boththe press law and the Islamic penal law , because
they remain silent beforesome kinds of offenses. Besides they lack
coordination in some respects.
The present thesis endeavors to rendes the
definitions and status ofcrime and a comparative study of that in other
religions plus theshortcomings of the statute law in this regard and
some recommendeysolutions. In the end there is a recourse to the shiite
jurisprudence on thebasis of the Quranic evience and the prophet's
Traditions and the relation ofthese to crimes such as blasphemy and
apostasy.
