아프리카ㆍ중동

This study analyses the Islamic penal laws and death penalty focusing on Saudi Arabia and Iran. It reviews the development and legislative processes of the Islamic penal laws in Saudi Arabia and Iran. And then it examines the codification of Islamic Sharia Laws into the positive penal laws of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have carried out the highest number of death penalty execution in the Middle East during the period between 2007 and 2014. The numbers of execution by the two countries during the period, recorded by Amnesty International, was 2,591 in Iran and 670 in Saudi Arabia (the average number of each year was 324 in Iran and 84 in Saudi Arabia).
In 1912, Iran introduced a Western and secular penal law system and had maintained that system until the Islamic revolution in 1979. After the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini initiated the codification of Islamic Sharia Laws into positive penal laws. In contrast to the case of Iranian penal codes, Saudi Arabia has not codified Islamic Sharia Laws into positive penal laws. As a result, Sharia is the main source of Saudi penal laws which comprises three categories: Hudud, Qisas and Tazir. The Hudud crimes of Saudi Arabia are, for example, including theft, robbery, blasphemy, apostasy, adultery, sodomy, and fornication. The fact is that the conservative Wahhabism and the jurisprudence of the Hanbali School have become the main sources of the Saudi religious and judicial sectors. With the combination of these conservative religious doctrines and the Saudi monarchic system, Saudi Arabian penal laws have become Islamized with an extreme literal interpretation of the Sharia Laws. As a result, the number of death penalty executions in Saudi Arabia has been also rapidly increased.