Relationship between Temperament and Crime: An Analysis of a Favorite Theory of Islamic Psychologists

Abstract

Change in political system of Iran in the late 1970s led to a change in division of sciences. This change was mainly based on division of human sciences into two groups, Islamic and non-Islamic, by the revolutionaries. Thus, Islamic psychology and Islamic law came to the fore and were considered for behavior analysis. Due to the increase in crime in Iranian society and judicial cases, as well as the profound influence of Iran's legal and educational system on Islam; the purpose of this paper is to re-analyze relationship between temperament and crime, considering the views of Islamic psychologists. The present research method was of qualitative content analysis type, statistical population including all works related to research topic, and targeted sampling method was used to select sources. The researchers looked at the inference classification method for data analysis. Findings show that relationship between temperament and crime can be considered as an oldest theory in this regard, while scientific advances have brought many alternative theories. Another finding of the study shows that in determining punishment for criminals, the attention of Islamic psychologists is focused on Implementation of justice theory; while through examining verses of Qur'an cannot find much evidence to support biological crime theory. In practice, the biological theory of crime has not been accepted by legislators of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Islamic psychologists need to reconsider it.

Keywords

• crime
• islamic law
• islamic medicine
• islamic psychology
• temperament