Contemplation on the Jurisprudential Evidences of Article 136 of the Islamic Penal Code

On the one hand, article 136 of the Islamic Penal Code has stipulated: “When a person commits the same crime leading to ḥadd (legal punishment) three times, and each time his legal punishment is executed upon him, his ḥadd on the fourth time is death”; on the other hand, in the Shī‘a narrative collections, in a narration from Seventh Imam (A.S.), known as “Yūnus’s Message”, it has been made clear that Imam has said: “Those who commit major sins are killed in the third time.” The content of this tradition, which forms a “general rule” and a “universal major”, contradicts the concept of the above-mentioned article.
In this paper, after studying the hadith and confirming its authenticity and validity, and also by matching the content of the tradition with the provisions of this article, the author has consistently reviewed the criminal topics of article 136. In the following, the prospective documents and the following alleged reasons for each of the criminal offenses listed in this article are examined and evaluated with jurisprudential criteria. It is finally concluded that the application of the above-mentioned article is without the jurisprudential justification and only the two topics of “adultery” and “robbery” are for specific reasons out of the general narrative of Yūnus and exemplified by Article 136 of the Islamic Penal Code.