پژوهشنامه متین
پیاپی 48 (پاییز 1389)

There are differences of opinion among the jurists about legality of intellectual property rights. Some jurists maintain that such rights are not legal due to the following reasons: their incompatibility with the rule of domination, lack of acknowledgement of such rights by the Law-Giver, their incompatibility with the mission and sanctity of science and lack of personal possession. Hence, they maintain that third persons can use them with any permission from the proprietors. Some other jurists maintain that such rights are legal and that one should not use them with the permission of the proprietor. They argue that the following reasons support their viewpoints: reason, rule of domination and Wilayat Faqih. The Sunni jurists also forward two reasons in support of this viewpoint.

Cloning refers to reproduction of human beings through non-sexual methods. It is of two kinds: curative and reproductive. In reproductive cloning, whose result is reproduction of a human being, the cloned human being will enjoy all rights like other members of society such as identity, lineage and inheritance. On the other hand, the members of society have certain responsibilities towards such a person. Among the rights of a cloned person as a member of society is lineage. There are however differences of opinion about the parents of the cloned person. What is for certain is that a cloned person is entitled to have a father. There is no legal problem regarding the identity of such a person; the donor of semen is the legal and natural custodian of the cloned baby and shoulders the duties envisaged in the civil law for a custodian. Similar laws regarding inheritance, retaliation, blood money and other rights applying to all people in the society applies to the cloned person. Regarding the duties of society towards a cloned person, it should be mentioned that the duty of the society towards a cloned person is just like its responsibility towards people born out of normal marriages. The society should grant the rights of such persons and must not deal with them as a commercial commodity. Hence human values must be taken into consideration in dealing with such a person.

There are four viewpoints about the vague concepts in the Quran: the appearance; the commonality of words; truth and virtual; and spirit of meaning. According to the theory of spirit of meaning, words have been forged on the basis of the spirit of meaning and the features of the referents have not been taken into consideration in their meanings. Hence, their application in the tangible referents too can be true. Therefore, the vague words that have been used in the Quran have been used in tangible and intangible referents in a true manner not in a virtual manner. This viewpoint was put forth by Gazzali but after him has been discussed till date. Such figures as Mullsa Sadra, Feiz Kashani and Allama Tabatabi have discussed it. The present paper is an attempt to discuss the viewpoints of Imam Khomeini on the same issue.

One of the issues related to soul is its quality regarding its mundane or spiritual generation. The viewpoints of two Muslim philosophers, that is, Imam Khomeini and Mulla Sadra about this issue are studied in this article. The two philosophers argue that soul has two statuses and also they argue that the soul moves from mundanity to spirituality. They offer two reasons in three categories in this regard: 1 – refutation of the reasons of primary spirituality or abstraction of the soul; 2 – refutation of reasons of the priority of soul; 3 – refutation of reasons of generation of soul before the body. Also the differences of viewpoints of the two philosophers about the said reasons are discussed. The conclusion of the present paper is that although the two thinkers do not have differences of opinion on the general aspects of the problem, they differ in its details.

Attempts have been made in the present study to review the definition and evolution of the concept of justice as defined by the Western and Muslim thinkers. In the next step the viewpoints of John Rawls and Imam Khomeini about social justice have been elaborated. In viewpoint of Imam Khomeini and John Rawls, justice, on the one hand, is at the top of all virtues and on the other is a criterion for assessment of the fairness of institutions and their working mechanisms. However, due to differences in their worldview and anthropology, there are differences of opinion between them regarding the nature of justice and its relations with other aspects of human being. Attempts have been made in the present paper to find out the similarities and differences of opinions of the two thinkers on the issue of social justice.

The present paper is a result of an empirical research to study the relationship between negative (revolutionary) participation for establishment and positive (electoral) participation to stabilize and strengthen the Islamic Republic system. The objective of this study has been investigated through a documentary study through comparative method inside the country with county as the unit of analysis. The popular struggles of the people during the 18 months leading to the victory of the revolution were analyzed in cross-sectional method to study the revolutionary participation. And the period between 1989 to 2005 has been investigated for an analysis of electoral participation. Finally, the findings of the research have been described through statistical techniques in the form of static and dynamic reports.

Islam recognizes three ways for proving an offense, which entails difficult but important conditions. For instance, testimony of just witnesses, lack of accusation, lack of interest and lack of animosity are the necessary conditions. With regard to confession, only the confession against the confessor is valid. There are four approaches to the knowledge of judge. However, the predominant viewpoint is that the knowledge of judge is valid both regarding the people's rights and Allah's rights. However, Ibn Jonaid does not acknowledge the validity of the judge's knowledge. The author of Jawahir states: the requirements of invalidity of the judge's knowledge is either corruption of the judge or prevention of the divine commandment and the requirement of this approach considering the important principle of denial of prohibited and expression of right as unnecessary. Moreover, when evidences and confessions are valid and prove the offense, the knowledge of judge too is valid because evidence and confession are among the guessed reasons while knowledge and definiteness are prior to guess.