Seminary school (Hawzah), Islamic system and cleric's participation in the area of politics

The relationship of the seminary (Hawzah) with the Islamic system and the engagement of the clerics in politics are among the important issues which are viewed from different angles. This paper seeks to present a realistic picture of an evaluation of these two important issues according to the students of Qom seminary. For conducting this study, a survey research and means of questionnaires were used and 650 seminarians (male and female) were chosen from second and higher levels. The findings of the study show that, more than 96 percent of them advocate the idea of tight union of the destiny of Islamic system with the seminaries schools and more than 80 percent of them consider the relation between the Islamic system and the clerics a relation between protection and advice. 97/1 percent of them completely agree about the necessity of the cleric's participation in the social, political changes of the society. 93/2 percent of them consider that the indifference in opinion among the clerics concerning the political issues of society has harmful effect on religion, and only 18/6 percent see that the engagement of the seminary in the political affairs causes people to abandon religion. Moreover, exploring the relationship between the basic variables and the stated variables show that, despite the differences in the seminarian's basic characteristics, they share the same view in the way they evaluate the relationship between seminaries and Islamic system.