نقد و بررسي ماده 637 قانون مجازات اسلامي

A Critical Review of the Article 637 of the Islamic Penalty Law

Illicit relations and acts of immorality other than adultery are regarded as crime from the legal point of view and liable to discretionary punishment (taʹzir). In jurisprudence and law, no comprehensive and exclusive definition is given for these two issues. The nature and definition of the crime of "illicit relation" is different from that of "immoral act other than adultery". The former can he defined as any relation between a man and a woman with the intention of pleasure and the latter as any physical contact between stranger (unmarried) man and woman for the intention of pleasure without engaging in intercourse. Legislators have not specified the extent of discretionary punishment for the above two cases but the number of lashes is to be different in respect to the difference in nature of the two. In this paper, the issues "illicit relation" and "immoral act other than adultery" are reviewed from the two legal and juristic points of view.