فصلنامه اسلام و مطالعات اجتماعی
سال سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 10، پاییز 1394)

Though Islamic World has constantly been prone to dialectic between unifying and divisive drives, whenever unifying elements have been manifested to a large extent, unity has been achieved. This paper is to find out what internal capacities Islam enjoys to implement such unity. Meanwhile, Hajj, as a universal worship that gathers a large number of Muslims from around the world to do the same ritual at the same space and time, has been in focus through which its capability in implementing unity in Islamic World is studied.
In terms of strengthening civilizational identity and concentrating on the common enemy, hajj could have the capacity of achieving political convergence in the Islamic World. Congregationality and anarchism of hajj ritual makes it a kind of unifying ritual. In addition, moral context and the possibility of economic interaction in hajj is to be studied for the sake of unity in the Islamic World.

Nation-state fault in the Iranian society has long been there and there have been different views in analyzing it. In this paper, we try to figure out the stance the clergy have had toward the phenomena in contemporary history of Iran; in fact, we focus on four southern anti-colonialism movement, especially at the time of constitutional movement and World War I. We put Dr. Hamid Parsania’s approach in our agenda as the supportive theoretical framework to analyse the fault. We have inferred the approach from three works of him specifically the first one: Seven Waves of Reforms (haft moj-e eslāhāt): the relation of theory to practice, The Story of Bushel (hadith-e peymāneh): the study of Islamic Revolution, and Types and Cycles of Intellectualism (anvā’ va advār-e roshanfekri). We have used library research to gather the data.
The problem of nation-state fault is not restricted to the society of Iran, yet its causes in the history of Iran could be understood in relation to the nature of society. Iranians’ historical beliefs are the major causes of strengthening or weakening the fault. Our findings prove the decisive effect of Shia scholars on catch and spread of nation-state fault in the course of southern constitutional movement as well as southerners’ fights against British colonialism during 1837-1919. It also supports the practicality of “Parsania Algorithm”[1] in justifying the scholars’ southern movement.

The concept of “reference groups” is based on the fact that the formation of individuals’ social identity is the result of groups and individuals to whom they interact directly or indirectly. The analysis of the phenomenon about the youth is much more complicated because due to social and age conditions, the youth are more prone to be affected by reference groups. At this age, different individuals and groups are noticed by the youth in each social field.
Some sources, such as family in most fields as a reference, play the role of reference group, and others such as cultural and scientific dignitaries are noticed only in certain field. The extent to which they affect differs too: those with more trust, more connection and more acceptability to the youth would affect deeper, wider and longer than those of just a symbolized state. Furthermore, the way they influence is also different: sometimes face-to-face consultation, other times emotional inspirations, and also indirect patterning pave the way for tendency to reference groups. In this paper we explore the reference groups for the youth in Qom through survey and conclude a) they think and decide independently; b) they tend to their family, which contradicts generation gap; c) they act against social collapse; d) they are talented and favor being patent; e) they believe in following religious authorities; f) there is a distinction between religious students, clergies, scholars and religious authorities; g) holy shrines (especially Hadhrat Maasoumah’s) enjor high status; and finally h) there should be a focus on Iranian and Islamic identity.

Nowadays the importance and state of development and its different aspects are of the most controversial discussions in national and international academic circles. Development is defined as a process that eases the flourishment of man’s talent and his enhancement in all economic, social, political and cultural areas, so that he could enjoy a prosperous life in his way to material and spiritual perfection. Nonetheless, what doubles the importance is that development is regarded as a human right alongside his other recognized rights. Our question here is what the aim of right to development is.
We hypothesize that justice, security, freedom and prosperity could be the aims of right to development. To answer the question and prove the hypothesis, we study international instruments and regulations as well as the Islamic teachings comparatively.

Definition, distinction and detailed analysis of concepts are essentials to science. Of important concepts in the literature of sociology, which is poorly conceptualized, is “social commitment”, although it has a lasting origin in human thought. “Ethics” is the field of science that has dealt with the concept. In this paper, we have studied the books “jāmi’ al-sa’ādāt”, “mi’rāj al-sa’ādah”, and “al-maqāmāt al-‘aliyyah fi ‘ilm al-akhlāq” as the major books of ethics. In this study, we have extracted 51 features for social commitment and have eventually categorized them into 4 main dimensions. These dimensions have an ascending order. The first one, “affability”, is the most superficial- i.e. one could have this dimension and be void of others and consequently social commitment. The next one is “honesty’; i.e. in addition to affability, one should be honest too. Regarding “philanthropism” as the third dimension, one should be philanthropist alongside being affable and honest.
Finally, the last one, as the most profound level in making social commitment, is “stability of the goodness”. Whenever somebody has these four dimensions, he could be called “committed”.

From late 19th century, a group of activists called “feminists” objected Islamic Sharia Laws about women. Since they have regarded these laws as the result the dominance of a male reading of Islam, they have tried to give a new interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah and a new way of extracting laws. Hijab has always been the most critical law they have noticed. They presented a new reading based on so-called mores and women rights, whereas the study of their thoughts prove they lack enough expertise in fiqh and law, and they postulate superficially without any scientific evidence. Eisegesis, lack of enough sources, and non-attendance to research methodologies of jurisprudence are of the problems questioning their ideas about hijab. In this paper, we try to review the ideas of three feminism activists: Qasim Amin, Fatema Mernissi, and Amina Wadud according to rational and traditional reasons.