Historical Course of Legislation on the Punishment of Confiscation of Property

Since from the very beginning of the formation of human societies, human beings have always witnessed various crimes in which some human beings violated each other's rights; Naturally, as these societies developed, humans began to think about preventing abnormal behaviors. One of the best preventive factors of criminal and abnormal behaviors and actions that has been the punishment of violators including the ones with a long history, and is still a part of conventional punishments is confiscation of property. For human beings acquire property with great suffering, one of the most painful punishments is the expropriation. This study, using an analytical-descriptive method, explains the nature of confiscation, which can be introduced as "permanent deprivation of property rights by the government and the transfer of property to the government without exchange." Although manifestations of such a punishment can be seen after the advent of Islam and during the time of the Rashidun Caliphs and the Umayyads and the Abbasids in the life of the caliphs and their agents, attributing this punishment to the sharia is not true and no firm evidence is seen in the sira of the Infallibles. However, this punishment is found in some Iranian legal materials before and after the Islamic Revolution, and for this reason, these legal materials can be subject to criticism.