Criminal Sanction in Preserving Enjoining the good and forbidding the Evil in the Laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran

‘Enjoining the good and forbidding the evil’ as one of the principal and fundamental values of a society is the most important symbol and representation of the republic and Islamic state of the system of government which should be increasingly preserved, promoted and proliferated in society and which is to be taken as a guarantee for keeping the society safe and as a contributory factor in establishing values and removing abnormalities in the light of active and common participation. This fundamental value should be preserved through excersising the proper sanctions among which one can refer to the criminal sanction as a form of governmental intervention. Preservation here specifically means the contributory factors which encourage or make the individuals in society to act on this divine obligation or to take measures to enforce it or to remove the structural and human obstacles (negative confrontation due to the omissions) in the way of enforcing it. Accordingly, in the threefold international relation between the one who bids unto good deed (maÝrÙf ) and the one who forbids from the evil (munkar), the addressee and the relevant third parties, one can define ‘act (fiÝl ) and failure to act (omission) and also determine criminal sanction according to people’s rights and duties (obligations). The research method used in this article is descriptive-analytic and library sources have also been used.