Desirable Cultural Policy Making on Mosque in the Islamic Republic of Iran; a Survey of Expert's and Policy Maker's Views

The article is to respond to the question about the desirable cultural policy making in regard to mosque in the I.R. of Iran from the viewpoint of experts. The task is to utilize expert's and official's experience to determine the status and role of the government vis-à-vis mosque in the country. To this end, by using content analysis method and after 34 semi-structured interviews with the experts at three levels of descriptive, analytical and integrative coding, the characteristics of the required policy making have been obtained. The results indicate extracted themes from the expert's views as follows: "theoretical view of government's interference in mosque", "approaches to the government's interference in mosque ", and "government and cultural organizations related to mosque". As for the first view, the research suggests that policy making should be done under a single organization, institution or council called mosque and this under the supervision of the Supreme Leader, thus determining various roles and duties of related cultural centers. Besides, the administration of mosques should be decentralized and carried out by people's complete participation. As for the second above-mentioned view the results indicate that the government must consider a combination of supporting, supervisory, occasional and guaranteeing approaches and act according to each of the approaches.