Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mir Yasha Hadiani ¹
• Mohsen Borhani ²

¹ -

² Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The study of criminal justice in the Qajar era (prior to the Constitutional Revolution) is of particular importance as the backdrop against which the modern penal system emerged in Iran. By examining criminal justice during the Qajar period, this research seeks to answer the question of whether a discernible order or a unified system governing criminal justice can, in fact, be identified in this era. Two principal approaches may be distinguished in studies concerning criminal justice in the Qajar period: the dualistic approach, examined in this article primarily through the works of Willem Floor, and a competing approach developed in the writings of Christoph Werner. While critically engaging with both perspectives, the present article argues that neither approach is ultimately satisfactory. Instead, it proposes an alternative interpretation, maintaining that criminal justice in this period was not founded upon any clearly defined order, and that attempts to identify a coherent system inevitably encounter numerous contradictory examples. The “non-systemic” interpretation advanced as the central argument of this article challenges the shared tendency in the works of Werner and Floor to trace a form of order and coherence within Qajar criminal justice. Rather, it conceptualizes criminal justice as the outcome of the absence of a stable and clearly defined order among fluctuating circles of power, thereby identifying it as an inherently irregular and fragmented phenomenon. This conclusion is grounded in an understanding of the Qajar state as fundamentally weak, such that no integrated and overarching order could realistically be discerned under its authority.

Keywords

• Criminal Justice
• Shari’a
• Custom
• Qajar
• Non-Systemicity
• Christoph Werner
• Willem Floor

Main Subjects

• History