A Reflection on Privacy and Restriction of Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil Concerning Overt Behaviors from the Perspctive of Jurisprudence and Law

This article seeks to provide an answer to the question whether the obligation of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil merely concerns a behavior which is overt and identified without any need to keep it under constant surveillance or in some cases the aforementioned obligation is not bound to any overt behavior or activity. Having mentioned different areas of protecting privacy as in creeds, physical body, residence, communication, information, the present research examines the articles 3 and 5 of the law of protection of those who enjoin the good and forbidding the evil against the Islamic Law and the Constitution. The findings of the research, while emphasizing the fact that the illegitimacy of surveillance and intrusions into people’s privacy include those measures taken to enjoin the good and forbid the evil, show that taking into account the general application of the verses and traditions concerning the question of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, the necessity of these two obligations is not limited overtly to the abandoning of religious obligations and commiting inviolable things and no elaboration is found in the words of the Musliim jurisprudents between the abandoning religious obligations or committing inviolable things overtly or covertly. Hence, it seems that the legislator has made a confusion between the impermissibity of surveillance and universalizability of enjoining the good.