Journal of the Socio - Political Thought of Islam
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Summer and Autumn 2020

The traditional view on the clash of civilizatiins favors and anticipates the outbreak of wars owing to dissimilar and rigid views of other peoples and their cultural constructs. Such a view is extended to the Islamic religion, too. The basis of this widely-held misconception is ascribed to the role of shariah and its various functions in certain Muslim communities. Such an inflexible and rigid view of shariah misrepresents and defames Islam, as there have been some extremist movements here and there in Muslim communities. One of the origins of such an unfavorable depiction of Islam is its followers'  religious illiteracy, often followed by self-marginalization. A major conclusion is that Muslims should realize that Islam is flexible enough to favor and promote peaceful co-existence.

Referring to the current literature of radicalism and terrorism, one can find various aspects of it that unfortunately deal with all spheres of public life in thought, politics, society, and economics and have a negative impact on international relations; all these matters show the importance of understanding the roots of radicalism and its rising. The present paper attempts to find the bases, contexts, and factors of radicalism, its rise and formation, especially in the Muslim world. The purpose of this study is to search the intellectual infrastructure and factors of appearance and emersion of radicalism and terrorism, hence the main question of this study is to examine the context, background and factors of radicalization and the emergence of the idea in the greater Muslim community. Despite all teachings of the Holy Quran, the value of immunity and protection of human lives, what happened to so-called Muslims that without fear and without any regard for their own lives kill and harm themselves, women, children, and innocent people. In answer to this question, some hypothesis is presented in that the relevant factors can be divided into two parts: theoretical-cum-intellectual and sociological factors.  In the section on theoretical-cum-intellectual factors, some factors such as non-comprehensive and wrong analysis of the holy and sacred texts; overcoming of feelings and emotions over reason and rationality, a feeling of injustice and unfairness, despairing from current situation, hence lack of hope for coming up with improvement and reform. Sociologically, some factors such as utilization of extremism as an instrument in foreign relations by certain superpowers, poverty, incorrect foreign relations of some superpowers and processes of globalization are some important grounds and factors that may lead to radicalism extension in recent decades. This study was conducted according to the sociology of knowledge.

The Safavid-era Persian Shiite cleric and sage Dayd Kashani was both a disciple and a son-in-law of the Shiite philosopher Mulla Sadra Shirazi. Fayd Kashani who was an accomplished scholar made an expert in various branches of Islamic scholarship. His inclination toward what was then known as sufism turned to be in the realm of mysticism proper, plus his keen interest in adopting an intellectual approach to the Holy Quran and hadith sources. A pivotal book of his has been al-Kalimat al-Maknunah (Hidden Words) that has received several expositions, editions, and translations.

Since the time the possibility of human reproductive cloning was proved, there have been serious concerns over practicing this new breakthrough in creating human being. In these debates which often have a negative approach towards it, different harms and consequences of possible practice of this technology in reproduction of human are mentioned. This article discusses the suggested psychological problems of the issue through an analytical method. Identical ambiguity, the negative effects of knowing your future, man without individuality and identity, psychological damages to the cloned child if the parents' divorce, Second-order humans, Negating man's autonomy and independence plus excessive expectations from clones are the objections raised by the opponents of human reproductive cloning from this aspect.

“After the eighth Infallible Imam al-Riḍā (Persian pronunciation, Imam Reza) had answered the questions of the (religious) delegation, including eminent Christian and Jewish (religious) scholars, he said to them: ‘O People! If any of you is familiar with Islam and wants to (direct) questions (to me), then let him come up with the question(s) without feeling ashamed.’”The above quotation from Imam Reza proves insightful into how he understood engagement with other religions, as it relates to his own religion in that this engagement should not be done, but with honesty.The present paper focuses on Scriptural Reasoning as a method of making religions closer to one another with a view of understanding the other and, in so doing, understanding more of oneself. The engagement of religions will be addressed at three levels (triadic approach): Inter-religion, Intra-religion and trans-religion. I will trace the history and influences that developed into the concept of Scriptural Reasoning as a method of honestly engaging other religions and one’s own religion. Scriptural Reasoning was always a method of engagement between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is not about finding commonality, neither is it to be seen as a foundational approach, where exclusivity forms the basis of the approach to Scriptural Reasoning, nor about finding agreements (though there may be). It is, however, about learning to disagree better. It is about engaging the difficult texts, asking the difficult questions, and allowing the text to speak even to the detriment of popular beliefs about a text.

In the Abrahamic faiths, it is held that Abraham had received a Divine command to sacrifice one of his sons. The human sacrifice of that event was ransomed alive due to a sheep that was dispatched from the heavens for Abraham. Though Jews believe that it was Isaac who was ransomed, based on the Old Testament, both historical and Quranic evidence prove that it was Ishmael who underwent such a sacrificial experience in the vicinity of Mecca. The paper highlights some discrepancies in the Biblical references, too.