An Examination of the Jurisprudential Principles of the Benefit of Hearing in People with One Hearing Ear(A study on the principles of Article 683 of the Islamic Penal Code)

The legislator in Article 683 of the Islamic Penal Code, as it is known, considers half of the diya (blood money) in the hearing loss of a person with one hearing ear. The only person who disagrees with this view is Ibn Hamza al-Tusi. He distinguishes between deafness for criminal reasons and non-criminal and congenital ones. By studying the principles of most of the jurists’ viewpoints, it was concluded that the fatwa to halve the full diyat on hearing in both ears has weak basis or reasons and the claim of the jurists on the non-inclusion of narratives in the other main benefits of the person’s body – based on the multiplicity of benefits and the mere attribution of the benefits to extreme strength and weakness - confirms this fact. In addition, most of jurists’ viewpoints on the diya of hearing implies a full diya in total hearing. However, a person’s hearing may be weak or strong. In addition, while rejecting the possibility that the fatwa of Ibn Hamzah was comparative, it became clear that the narrative on which the possibility of comparing hearing to sight, was related to the eye, not sight. In addition, in that narrative, there is no distinction between blindness for criminal and non-criminal reasons. Therefore, in determining the diyat for the complete hearing loss, the narratives consider the full diya, and the case where the hearing of one of the two ears has already been lost because of a crime is beyond these narratives.