Investigating the possibility of spreading the punishment law of theft in the year of famine to the time of other economic crisis

According to Article 268 of the Islamic Penal Code one of the conditions for theft punishment (hand amputation) is that it does not occur during a famine. Since the famine is similar to other economic crises, the authors used the descriptive-analytical method to investigate the possibility of extending the theft sentence in the year of famine to theft during other economic crises. The results of this study indicated that if like sunni jurists and some imamia jurists, we consider the criterion for the legislation of this rule (theft sentence in the year of famine) as the emergence of a specific period when theft happens as an act out of desperation, we may not extend it to other crises, but according to some other imamia jurists this rule has the characteristic of divine indulgence and could be extended to other types of crises.