Intellectual, historical and civilizational traditions of Muslim social thought
zeynab aalami; mahdi Hosseinzadeh yazdi; Qasem Zaeri
Abstract
The issue of unveiling has been one of the most pressing socio-cultural challenges in Iranian society. Beyond its incompatibility with Iranian-Islamic cultural values, it has generated significant social, political, and national consequences for the Islamic Republic. Understanding this phenomenon within ...
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The issue of unveiling has been one of the most pressing socio-cultural challenges in Iranian society. Beyond its incompatibility with Iranian-Islamic cultural values, it has generated significant social, political, and national consequences for the Islamic Republic. Understanding this phenomenon within its historical context—particularly its early manifestations in Iran—is therefore of critical importance. This study explores the discursive transformations of veiling from the Constitutional Revolution to the end of the reign of Reza Shah, within the framework of discursive conflict. The study adopts a discourse analysis approach grounded in the theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The findings indicate that during the early Constitutional era, a pro-veiling discourse prevailed. However, anti-veiling voices increasingly framed Western-style dress reform around four central themes: freedom, chastity, education, and religious reinterpretation. This framing destabilized the dominant discourse, leading to the emergence of five defensive sub-discourses: Qur’anic-jurisprudential veiling, Weakness-Oriented veiling, Woman-Centered veiling, socio-political veiling, and Legalistic veiling. A central binary emerged—"domesticity and veiling" versus "social participation and unveiling"—reflecting the deepening discursive polarization. With the rise of the Pahlavi regime, the anti-veiling discourse gained institutional support, especially through civil registration and public education systems. The 1935 Mandatory Unveiling Law effectively neutralized public debate by coercively imposing one side of the discourse.
Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers
Azra Akbari; qasem zaeri
Abstract
"The idea of unity" was formed among Muslim elites from the beginning of the confrontation of Muslims with colonial modernity. Imam Khomeini (RA) as one of the most important preachers of this thought, from a forward-looking perspective, has a special plan for the administration of the Islamic world ...
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"The idea of unity" was formed among Muslim elites from the beginning of the confrontation of Muslims with colonial modernity. Imam Khomeini (RA) as one of the most important preachers of this thought, from a forward-looking perspective, has a special plan for the administration of the Islamic world in the post-Unification period. In this article, while considering the political and social conditions governing the Islamic world after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we will examine and explain two issues: First, what is the Islamic unity from Imam Khomeini's point of view and how will it be realized? Then, if this union is realized, what is the model for managing it. Finally, the dimensions of the idea of forming an Islamic state with free and independent republics as a model for the administration of the Islamic world in the post-unification stage have been explained and examined, which gives an image of a union with a confederal system. In this research, data collection and analysis have been done by using documentary method and historical analysis."The idea of unity" was formed among Muslim elites from the beginning of the confrontation of Muslims with colonial modernity. Imam Khomeini (RA) as one of the most important preachers of this thought, from a forward-looking perspective, has a special plan for the administration of the Islamic world in the post-Unification period. In this article, while considering the political and social conditions governing the Islamic world after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we will examine and explain two issues: First, what is the Islamic unity from Imam Khomeini's point of view and how will it be realized? Then, if this union is realized, what is the model for managing it. Finally, the dimensions of the idea of forming an Islamic state with free and independent republics as a model for the administration of the Islamic world in the post-unification stage have been explained and examined, which gives an image of a union with a confederal system. In this research, data collection and analysis have been done by using documentary method and historical analysis.
New ideas for the reconstruction of social sciences based on the sources of Islamic thought
Qasem Zaeri; ali Eskandari Naddaf
Abstract
In the last two decades, there has been a thriving debate on the possibility or nature of "native science" in the general field of humanities in Iran. The status of "social science" in Iran is a part of these discussions, and "sociologists" themselves have been and are part of the localization debate. ...
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In the last two decades, there has been a thriving debate on the possibility or nature of "native science" in the general field of humanities in Iran. The status of "social science" in Iran is a part of these discussions, and "sociologists" themselves have been and are part of the localization debate. This article refers to the opinions and opinions of a group of Iranian social science professors and experts in the aforementioned time frame, to categorize the opinions of the supporters and opponents of indigenous social science in Iran. The article shows that at least three main points can be identified in the discussions of indigenous social science in Iran: the positivist perspective, the continental-postmodern feature, and the perspective of Islamic wisdom. What is common between these three people and their representatives is the emphasis of all three on dealing with science and sociology to the specific issues and topics of each society, and the special attention to its specificity, including the historical specificity and identity of the Iranian society: the first group believes. Fixed and universal theoretical principles and foundations belong to modern science and these principles should be used to understand and solve the local problems of Iranian society. The second group believes that these principles are different for every society and culture, and understanding Iranian society requires identifying the specific cultural and historical principles and rules of this society. The third group definitely has the social beliefs of the first group about the global identity of science, but they consider the theoretical foundation of the modern scientific platform to be wrong and believe that there are alternative foundations to the Islamic wisdom for indigenous knowledge. In this article, the general orientation of "fundamental methodology" is used.In this article, the general orientation of "fundamental methodology" is used.
Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers
Abstract
Along with being "Islamic", being "Public" (Márdomi) is among the most important distinctive features of the Islamic Revolution. This study aimed at Ali Sháriati's stance on the notion of People in comparison with Mortáza Motáhari's. These two thinkers had a great deal ...
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Along with being "Islamic", being "Public" (Márdomi) is among the most important distinctive features of the Islamic Revolution. This study aimed at Ali Sháriati's stance on the notion of People in comparison with Mortáza Motáhari's. These two thinkers had a great deal of philosophical and sociological debates on such concepts as "The Individual", "Society", "History", and "Nās" in their works. However, due to practical involvement in revolutionary campaigns, they had to deal with the notion of "People" not as an abstract issue and not as the object of philosophical-sociological theorizations, but as the ordinary common people considering their role in plans for change in the current order or establishment of the new order. Seemingly, Shariati was preoccupied most in the problem of people-intellectual and had a twofold stance toward people: from one hand, he considered people as an absolute standard to assess all the social and the religious issues including God, the Prophet, worship, art, and the like. On the other hand, he selectively distinguished between the "Semi-human" and the "thirsty for faith and the deep desirer for the epoch of human equality" and put the latter at the heart of his plan for social evolution. Instead, Motahari focused most on the problem of people-religion and challenged the application of the notion of "the miserable" (Mostázáf) to ordinary people asserting that the miserable was not the same as the believer (Mômen). He assumed "good deed" (Ámal-e-Sāleh) as the criterion to assess ordinary people instead of miserableness. The study utilized documentary research method as well as reviewing the text of these two thinker's works.
Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers
qasem zaeri; seyed mohammad moallemi
Rereading and interpreting the ideas of leading Muslim thinkers
Qasem zaeri; Zeinab Aalami
Abstract
Imam Khomeini was the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979. In the discoursive context of the historical encounter of the modernists and the religious with Sunnah (Tradition), Imam Khomeini established and invigorated the orientation of "Sunnah Revival" going beyond the orientations of "Refusal ...
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Imam Khomeini was the leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979. In the discoursive context of the historical encounter of the modernists and the religious with Sunnah (Tradition), Imam Khomeini established and invigorated the orientation of "Sunnah Revival" going beyond the orientations of "Refusal of Sunnah" and "Return to Sunnah" on the one hand, and "Repetition of Sunnah" on the other hand. Also, he went beyond the developmental dualism of "Tradition-Modernity" and with "Positive ignorance" of the West, pursued the logic of internal criticism of sunnah. Imam Khomeini as a religious man (either in the leadership position of a great political-social revolution or in the position of an ordinary person in daily life) acted in the multiplexed context of Sunnah. This context comprises "religious tradition" and "life tradition". The former is dividable into "Divine-genetic tradition (SUNNAT-ALLAH)" and "Juridical-legislative tradition (FIQH)" and the latter is dividable into "the Muslim life tradition" (with subdivisions of "historical tradition of the beginning of Islamic era" and "the Muslim social tradition") and " the non-Muslim life tradition" (with subdivisions of "archaic tradition and pre-Islamic religions" and "the Arrogants tradition (MUSTAKBERIN)" ). Such various conceptions of Sunnah permit him to consider modernity not as a self-determining matter but as a variety of life tradition and to overcome the consequent problems of theoretical and practical involvement with modernity. By this multiplexed conceptions, Furthermore, he is able to criticize and reconstruct some aspects of Sunnah with reliance to the other aspects asymmetrically.
