مجله جامعه شناسی سیاسی جهان اسلام
پیاپی 2 (پاییز 1392)

National power consists of tangible and intangible capabilities that exist within the realm of a geographical unit called state. The measurement of national power for the purpose of ranking of the sates in international geopolitical system and its comparison with other countries has always been a concern of political geographers, political scientists and scholars of international relations. Hence several multivariable and single-variable methods have been invented to measure the power of countries. Attempts have been made in the present paper to review the existing measures and also measure the national power of Muslim states on the basis of nine economic, political, military, special, extraterritorial, territorial, scientific, technological, social and cultural elements. Also after ranking the Muslim states on the basis of their political, social, economic power, the rank of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been compared with those of the Muslim states. Finally, a three-tier power model has been depicted to identify the status of Muslim states.

The present paper is an attempt to study the position of the Islamic countries in the North-South division through studying their economic, social and cultural conditions. Hence a number of criteria have been studied to explain the developmental condition of the bloc of Islamic countries and a specific threshold has been set to the depict the North-South demarcation. These criteria prepare the grounds for a logical comparison within the Islamic world bloc and between the bloc of Islamic countries and other developmental groupings such as the developing and developed worlds. The main question of the present paper is as follows: what is the position of the countries constituting the Islamic world in the world and in the division of North and South? The findings of the paper indicate that the countries of the world of Islam, on the basis of main development indexes and variables, are not congruent. But on the basis of the existing demarcations, the condition of the world of Islam is compatible with the weak countries of the South. The failure of the countries of the world of Islam in scientific development and attraction and employment of advanced technology are among the factors for their weak position on the world level. Qualitative and quantitative data have been used through analytical-descriptive method to test the hypothesis.

After the disintegration of Soviet Union, Islamism gained a considerable weight in Central Asia, particularly in Uzbekistan. Islamism in Uzbekistan is of a fundamentalist nature. Through a historical, comparative method, the present paper will study the roots of emergence and spread of Islamism in Uzbekistan. Also the contexts of the emergence and spread of this phenomenon will be studied from the viewpoint of external factors and role of other countries including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan as well as some events such as September 11 attacks and their aftermath. Also internal factors such as the continuation of authoritarian system, violation of human rights, civil-political freedoms, suppression of Islamist groups, and social and economic problems will be studied. The hypothesis of the present paper is as follows: although external factors have been effective in the emergence and promotion of fundamentalism in Uzbekistan, internal factors have played a stronger role in this trend.

The objective of the present paper is to study the stances and polices of the governments of Iran and Arab countries towards the Lebanon 33-day war. The US and Western supporters of the Zionist regime expected to defeat Hezbuallh within a week, but the 33-day calculated defense of Hezbuallh forced the armed-to-the-teeth Zionist regime to accept the defeat. The countries of the region adopted different stances towards the war. Attempts have been made in the present paper to study different aspects of these stances through documentary method within the framework of Rosena’s foreign policy and international policymaking theory. The findings of the present paper show that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy is based on its internal and external environments and its ideological orientation. Hence Tehran announced its support for the resistance in political, cultural, publicity… arenas in the entire region. Among the Arab countries, six have been chosen that have had a more outstanding role during the 33-day war. The triangle of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are classified as opponents of resistance that opposed the Lebanese war in the hope of the victory of Zionist regime and US. But countries such as Syria, Qatar and Yemen supported Lebanon. The official stances, diplomatic propaganda and religious propagation as well as the fatwas are among the stances to be studied in the present paper.

The Islamic Revolution of Iran through reviving Islamic issues led to great cultural developments on the regional level, preparing the grounds for Islamic Awakening movement in the Middle East, North Africa and other regions. The main objective of the present research is to review the impacts of the Islamic Revolution of Iran on Iraq. The main question of the present paper is: what challenges and opportunities appeared with the victory of the Islamic Revolution for establishment of an Islamic government in Iraq? Despite the existence of a number of opportunities such as long joint borders, majority of Shia population in the south of Iraq, deep relations between the clerics and religious scholars of the two countries, the existence of certain limitations such as suppressive policies of the Ba’th regime, lack of unity among the Shia organizations and Ba’th party’s policy of nepotism, prevented the overthrow of the Ba’th regime and establishment of an Islamic government in Iraq in the early years of the victory of Islamic Revolution. Attempts have been made in the present paper to comparatively study the government models of Imam Khomeini and that of Ayatollah Sadr to elaborate the political structure of Iraq and its impact on the stance of Iraqi Shias towards the Islamic Revolution of Iran – through discourse analysis. Also the role of Shia organizations in their unity and solidarity, the economic conditions of the Iraqi Shias as well as the impacts of Iranian economic conditions on stance of Iraqi Shias towards the Islamic Revolution have been studied through a rational approach.

Over the past two years, the Middle East and North Africa have been the scene of considerable political and social developments, shaking the political structure and cultural atmosphere of the countries of the region. The term Islamic awakening is a suitable concept to explain these developments. The hypothesis of the present paper is as follows: from the viewpoint of the discourse of Islamic Revolution, the year 1979 has a semantic connection with intellectual grounds of the movement of Islamic Awakening. The Islamic Revolution of Iran is an important link in the chain of contemporary Islamic movements and is a new paradigm which has been challenging the international system since 1980s. The hypothesis of the present paper is that simultaneous with the victory of the Islamic Revolution two other factors theoretically contributed to the formation of the resistance paradigm. One was the publication of the effective book of Edward Said, Orientolism (1979) and the other The Postmodern Condition of Francois Leotard (1979). The hypothesis of the present paper will be studied in two sections: in the first section, the formation of the paradigm of resistance will be studied while the section will discuss the connections of the said paradigm and the way of its impacts on the recent developments. The theoretical framework will be Cohen’s paradigm and the research methodology will be descriptive-analytical.