Legal Sociology of the Iranian Identity In Critique of Physical Identity and Nominal Rights

In presenting a lawful image of society, the sociology of law faces the difficultly of constructing a legal definition. Identity analysis is the main issue for the legal and sociological disciplines. Identity as an individual right versus identity as a collective culture creates an unending conflict between legal sociologists inside each discipline. The present paper takes this challenge as an assumption and goes on to focus on the Iranian identity to provide an analysis based on natural rights. The hypothesis is that identity, as a fundamental right, develops outside the society, while identity as culture, though looked upon from a legal perspective, is a right under the statutory rights, which is closer to the sociologist analysis. The value of this perspective in research lies in its presentation of a solution to the deviated analyses of the Iranian identity forged over the past few centuries.