The Extent to Which the Concept of Corruption on Earth Applies to the Hoardings of What Is Needed by the Public

Hording [in economics] is believed to be a behavioral pattern which occurs especially when people think that a current economic system does not operate efficiently or is in a chaotic state sometimes resulting in social collapse. Taking into account the jurisprudential sources, it seems at first glance that the hoarder is forced by law to sell the stored items and if he does not sell them at fair prices, the religious authority (hakim-e sharÝ ) places a price on them. However, the available jurisprudential sources have rarely dealt with the idea of the punishment of a hoarder. After the Islamic Revolution of Iran won victory and the Islamic government was formed, there was a tendency that under certain conditions, a hoarder should be recognized as “corrupter on earth”, or mufsid fi’l arÃ, to use the term in Islamic jurisprudence. The present research, having relied on the article 286 of the Islamic penal law ratified in 1392 in the Islamic Republic of Iran, seeks to describe and analyse the concept of corruption on earth as applied to one who is a hoarder. The research has come to the conclusion that a hoarder not only is at first faced with the force to sell at the fair price the items he has stored and pay a heavy fine, but he may also be sentenced to capital punishment if he is proved to intend to throw the Muslim community into a state of economical chaos and imbalance.