فصلنامه اسلام و مطالعات اجتماعی
پیاپی 2 (پاییز 1392)

The Islamic Revolution of Iran has been a very crucial factor in creating fundamental changes, a consequence of which is the establishment of religious government. In the early years of the fourth decade of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the Iranian society faced pervasive changes. Factors such as mass media, including the internet, satellites, etc, the growth of educational level and the presence of the young generation with increasingly material values and other authoritative groups and the information age have resulted in changes in people’s expectations of the existing roles in the society. This research investigated people’s expectations of the clergymen and the four factors (cultural, social, political and economic) influential in the people’s religious expectations of clergymen. From among the variables of religious expectation index, the observation of religious rulings ranked first with 64%. That is to say, clergies must practice what they preach. Cultural factor, economic expectations, social expectations and political expectations ranked first to fourth respectively in terms of their importance in satisfying people’s expectations.

The illegal sexual relationships are menacing threats to the human’s beliefs and lives. The negative consequences of such relations are indubitable ranging from violating and breaching dignities as well as threatening the foundation of the family to prostitution, raping, abortion, and social insecurities. A number of various elements such as deficient social structures, and lack of commitment to observe religious rulings have caused the expansion of illegal sexual relations in Iranian society. In the present article, first, the mentioned problem and the main cause of such unlawful relationships and the backgrounds of such abnormality were separately analyzed, then, “the problem” i.e. the abnormality in sexual relations which has originated from the lack of normal cultural paradigm for satisfying a real natural “desire” was discussed. There exist many situations wherein a person needs to satisfy his/her sexual drive as a natural desire; however, he/she does not have possibility of a permanent marriage. This is while; no other normal acceptable solution is defined for such a problem in the cultural field. Moreover, seemingly, the policies as well as policy making in Islamic Republic of Iran is inattentive to the problem. Holding some special fixed presuppositions, the Iranian policy makers stand against the grounds and consequences of the problem not attending to the fact that prior to any action, first of all, the roots and origin places of such abnormal relations must be identified. Therefore, reconsidering the subject is counted as one of the most essential and at the same time the most neglected field in cultural policy making in Iran. Presenting the image of the problem, the present study puts it on the table of policy making, and also by studying the existing theories depicts that the policy making system is in need of a new theory to organize, recommend, and recover the natural, healthy, and legitimate sexual relationships in the society.

The present study first and foremost deals with the methodology of Birmingham School. The objective of the research is to study the basic roots of Birmingham School, to recognize its epistemological reasons in cultural studies, and then to critique them through taking advantages of the capacities of the Islamic philosophy. The present piece of writing studies the generating factors, epistemological grounds, theoretical implications, and practical methods of Birmingham School, coming to the conclusion that this school is the result and under the influence of social movements, and epistemological circumstances of the second half of the 20th century including culturalism, Neo-Marxism, structuralism, and posstructuralism. Birmingham School attracts some criticism such as the reduction of epistemology to sociocultural fields,
weakness of the reasoning related to subjectivity of culture, lack of adequate attention to the socio-structural problems, lack of accurate understanding of the culture, degrading culture to a political issue, and the lack of clear method and theoretical framework.

Problematology is of the first, most necessary and essential necessities of research. It is of even greater importance in religious issues, especially the Quranic issues. Like other human sciences and researches, problematology is time and place dependent. Therefore, one of the crucial issues, which deserves to be considered in problematology, is the possibility of designing an updated flexible software holding the capacity of updating and modifying, as well as enjoying a relative comprehensiveness. Such a system should be so efficient and professional that by utilizing it, researchers can identify the existing problems of each age, study them, and present the most important problems. Taking the possibility of producing such a system in mind, the present essay has offered a suggestion composed of three parts: the data (input), data analysis, and the output. According to the mentioned design, in the first place, through utilizing two methods, Delphi technique and focus group, the existing Quranic issues in the society is identified at two levels of the ordinary and the elite. They are also prioritized according to their level of importance, and categorized based on the Quranic science and teachings’ structure, or other sorts of commonplace methods. Next, other data exactly as they exist in the text of the article are given to the software, and since the software is semismart, the headings are classified and the new problems are worked out by the two mentioned methods. Different types of data as input, the quality of analyzing data, and the required output are explained in the essay’s text.

The Islamic human development is today’s need of all human societies. What makes human development different from society to society, and what makes the speed of the influence and dissemination of the societies’ civilizations distinct from one another is the dominant or ruling paradigm of the societies. In the present article, paradigm is defined as the thinking framework and principles which affect on the human insight and way of thinking toward the world and its people. The Islamic paradigm in relation to human development is different from the commonplace paradigm of human development. Taking advantage of the holy Quran’s verses, the study clarifies the nature of Islamic development, the ultimate goals of Islamic development, and its ideological and valuable principles aiming at elevating the respect, dignity, glory, and welfare of human being. Therefore, the researcher is going to find the answer to the following questions: What are the goals, and the ideological principles and values from the viewpoint of Islam, and what are the ways of discovering them? The data collecting method is through library research as well as gathering existing documents. In Quranic, hadith (traditional), and jurisprudential reasoning, the content analysis is made, and in economic issues data analysis is made.

Religiosity is a multidimensional entity. Therefore, in their studies regarding evaluating the status of religiosity, the researchers in the field of religion have presented various paradigms. Accordingly, based on a local paradigm, the present research has tried to present a brief view of the Qomi youth. The survey study was performed on 600 young people aged between 15 to 30 years old, who were living in the city of Qom. The required data was collected through the questionnaire and the use of mixed sampling (stratified and cluster random sampling) proportionate with the survey total population. Based on the findings of the research, from among the three-dimensional aspects of religiosity, the religious beliefs enjoy the highest level of religious duty and precept among the youth. Being committed to or considering oneself obliged and obedient to mandatory religious worshipping, individual religious duties, social religious duties, religious moralities, and the signs of religiosity enjoyed lesser priorities regarding the religious duties, respectively. In a nutshell, the achieved results show a high level of the youth obedience to religious beliefs, morals, and individual obligations, and conversely a relatively low level of obedience to congregational worshipping, political ordinances, and religious rituals’ prioritizing or magnifying, and religious coalitions.