The journal of Social Theories of Muslim Thinkers, affiliated with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tehran, in collaboration with the International Association of Muslim Social Knowledge, intends to publish a research special issue on “Ayatollah Khamenei’s Social Theory.”
The special issue will be published on a rolling basis, with the aim of providing a scholarly and systematic platform for examining, reconstructing, and evaluating the theoretical potential of Ayatollah Khamenei’s social thought. It welcomes research articles from faculty members, scholars, and researchers.
Over several decades—both before and during his leadership—Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s intellectual system has developed, in response to the fundamental challenges facing contemporary society and the Muslim world, an extensive body of concepts and propositions concerning the human being, society, history, culture, politics, justice, progress, and Islamic civilization.
Concepts such as fitrah (primordial human nature), human dignity, social agency, divine laws governing history, justice, religious democracy, resistance, progress, lifestyle, family, identity, the university, and the New Islamic Civilization may, in their interrelationship within the intellectual system of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, constitute the foundations and components of a distinctive approach and a coherent theory of social reality.
Social theory is a coherent system of concepts, propositions, and explanatory relationships concerned with understanding and explaining how social phenomena emerge, persist, and change. Social theory is not merely a collection of viewpoints, moral recommendations, or scattered observations about society. Rather, it must possess relatively clear and defined concepts, logical relationships among those concepts, a specified analytical level and scope, and explanatory power.
A social theory must clarify the relationship among society, institutions, structures, values, and norms; identify the mechanisms through which social phenomena emerge; and specify the conditions under which they persist or change. It should also make possible the analysis of social reality, the formulation of research questions, critical evaluation, and the assessment of its adequacy in explaining social phenomena.
A social theory should generally be capable of addressing at least the following questions:
Accordingly, social theory takes shape when social concepts and ideas are organized into a coherent framework, their relations to one another are explained, and social mechanisms can be accounted for through them.
On this basis, the project of examining “Ayatollah Khamenei’s Social Theory” requires moving beyond the compilation of propositions or the extraction of a list of social concepts from his statements and writings.
It must be demonstrated that, within Ayatollah Khamenei’s intellectual system, related social concepts are connected through systematic relationships and that it contains explicable mechanisms concerning the formation, preservation, and transformation of society. It is also possible to examine how these elements are interconnected in relation to such themes as the human being, society, culture, civilization, the state, the people, institutions, power, justice, progress, and social change.
Articles submitted in response to this call may employ valid research methods to reconstruct, analyze, and evaluate various dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei’s social theory, while avoiding the reduction of theory to the classification of concepts or the mere description of viewpoints.
This special issue welcomes scholarly studies that examine various dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei’s social theory through an analytical, evidence-based, and systematic approach.
Articles may focus on the following:
Studies examining the relationship between this body of thought and contemporary social issues—including justice, the state, family, culture, lifestyle, science, technology, resistance, the Muslim world, progress, and Islamic civilization—will also be considered, provided that they are based on a clear theoretical framework, a valid methodology, and adequate documentary support.
The special issue particularly welcomes articles addressing less-examined dimensions of Ayatollah Khamenei’s social theory. These include:
The thematic areas of this call for papers are as follows:
Main question: What kind of reality do society and history possess in Ayatollah Khamenei’s thought, and on the basis of what principles and methods can they be known and analyzed?
Main question: What kind of framework for understanding society, history, social movements, and the desirable society is provided by the Qur’an’s social concepts, principles, and teachings as articulated in Ayatollah Khamenei’s thought?
Main question: How is a desirable social order formed, maintained, and reformed?
Main question: According to what historical logic, and through what forms of collective action and social resistance, does social change occur in Ayatollah Khamenei’s thought?
Main question: How do cultural systems, social institutions, and communication networks among Muslim societies shape identity, collective perceptions, agency, and collective action oriented toward the Islamic Ummah?
To advance the scholarly objectives of the special issue and contribute to the coherence, precision, and academic credibility of the submitted articles, the following subject-matter editors will collaborate in the relevant fields.
Through oversight of the evaluation and review process, the subject-matter editors will contribute to conceptual and methodological refinement, the alignment of submissions with the themes of the call, and the enhancement of the scholarly quality of the articles. It should be noted that the final decision regarding acceptance rests with the journal’s Editorial Board.
Submission deadline: 20 January 2027
Completion of publication of articles in the special issue: 20 February 2027
The special issue will be published on a rolling basis. Once an article has completed the peer-review process and the author has implemented the required revisions, it will enter the production process—including copyediting and typesetting—and will subsequently be published in the special issue without further waiting time.
Researchers should submit their manuscripts through the journal’s electronic submission system:
For further information, please contact the journal at:
All scholars and researchers interested in this subject are invited to contribute to the scholarly richness of this special issue by submitting their work.