The Crime of Intentional Killing in Iranian Law and Imami Jurisprudence

Murder is one of the most important forbidden behaviors and is considered a crime in all human societies, because its result is the deprivation of the most important God-given capital of a human being: his/her life. Intentional killing, like other crimes, has pillars and elements as a result of which this criminal phenomenon arises. One of the main pillars of intentional killing is the existence of a living person, and this crime will not be committed until this element is existed. In order to commit intentional killing, in addition to the material and legal element, a psychological (spiritual) element is also needed, which is the murderer’s criminal intent. From the point of view of Islamic jurisprudence, special importance has been given to intentional killing. Intentional killing, in addition to being a public crime, is an individual and personal crime. The punishment for intentional killing is retribution. But what is certain is that Shiite jurists and thinkers of Islamic law, with a little disagreement, has divided crimes against humanity into intentional, pseudo-intentional and pure error, and this division has been in accordance with Iranian law. The present study was conducted by descriptive-analytical method and in a comparative study of Iranian law and Imami jurisprudence, it was concluded that there is a lot of agreement between them and except in limited cases, legal materials are taken from Imami jurisprudence.