ماهنامه معرفت
سال بیست و چهارم شماره 5 (پیاپی 212، امرداد 1394)

This paper is an explanation of the words of the infallible Imams regarding the attributes and characteristics of the Shiites. True Shiite Muslims are worthy and pious servants of God who have no attachment to the material world and who are satisfied enough with the necessities of life. In general, the attributes of the Shiite are grouped under two main headings: positive and negative. The positive group of attributes includes performing divine duties and obligations. For attaining nearness to God, they say prayers and fast, and for gaining God's satisfaction they pay Zakat, spend money in God's cause, regularly keep vigil and stand in prayer throughout the night. The negative group of their attributes includes refraining from all that prevents them from performing divine duties, acquiring knowledge, piety and worshipping of God. The core virtue of these all is non-attachment to this world. The present paper explores this important issue.

In every country, the institutionalization of religious values is influenced by the institutional factors of socialization. The process of internalizing values and religious beliefs is called "religious socialization". Family, school, friends, the clerics, religious people and the mass media are among the most important factors in socialization. This study examines the relationship between religious socialization and religiosity of the survey respondents. The main question is about the most important factor in the religious socialization of people, especially the youth. The statistical population includes Guilan University students, 384 of whom were chosen as the sample. The theoretical approach to this research is a combination of the theory of interaction and functionalism. The results show that the most important factors of socialization are the mass media, the clerics, religious people and friends respectively. Compared with the other factors of socialization the two of the factors of socialization i.e. family and school have somehow lost their functions.

Religion is not only a plan for all aspects of human life, but it is also one of the most important factors which contributes to the development of society and man's control of his destiny through having a sense of responsibility. The aim of this descriptive-correlational study is to investigate the relationship between religiousness and having a sense of responsibility among the students. The statistical population includes the students of Islamic Azad University in Qom, and the survey sample comprises 362 students who were chosen by stratified random sampling. The data were collected according to Cronbach's alpha by using two standard questionnaires: one about religiousness the other about sense of and responsibility with reliability of 75.0 and 79.0 respectively. The results show that: 1. There is relationship between the student's religiousness and their sense of responsibility and the correlation is significant and at a confidence level of 95.0.2. There is a significant difference between male students and female students in the degree of religiousness.3. There is no significant difference between male students and female students in the degree of responsibility.4. There is a positive relationship between the degree of religiousness and maintaining moral standards among the students.5. There is a positive relationship between the degree of sense of responsibility and maintaining moral standards among the students.

As a social being man needs to earn a living and try to provide sustenance in order to survive. According to Islam, a faithful and pious person should do his best to make a halal (decent) living. Like other life activities, earning a decent living requires hard work, efforts, and showing gratitude for the blessings of the Almighty God. Using an analytical and library-based method, this paper seeks to investigate the causes of increasing sustenance from the view of the Quran and Hadith. The research findings indicate that the Almighty God has assigned sustenance for every creature. Making a decent living depends, in addition to man's efforts, upon his performing of or abstaining from certain acts. Doing certain good deeds contributes to the increase in sustenance and doing certain misdeeds unlawful acts does not only deprive man of decent sustenance but it also makes him live in misery and poverty and this leads to his aloofness from God's guidance. Since the Almighty God has guaranteed the sustenance of every living creature, one should not be worried about one's living and so man's attempts to earn a living should not prevent him from performing the religious obligations and injunctions.

No doubt, ‘’Silk Road’’ was formerly regarded as one the most salient economic, political and transportation developments, and the most important transit highway and center for exchanging cultures, arts, beliefs, religions as well as military and economic issues. The importance of of this question lies in the fact that the revival of ‘’Silk Road’’ prepares the ground for strengthening Iran’s strategic position and using the transit system of the way which links the West with the East. Using a descriptive-interpretative method and documentary evidence, this paper seeks to define the strategic role of ‘’Silk Road’’, in its traditional and modern forms, in developing the political, economic and cultural relations of Iran with central Asian countries and then to achieve the goals of resistance economy within the framework of Karl Dowech’s communicative theory. The research findings suggest that, despite the numerous challenges, there are suitable opportunities for reviving the strategic ‘’Silk Road’’, as a basic project, which helps facilitate transferring the loads and passengers. Therefore, it prepares the ground for cultural development and realizing the aims of resistance economy in Iran which include such things like variations in the sources of national revenue and freedom from dependence on oil revenues.

For distinguishing historical authentic narrations from, Abdul Rahman Ibn Khaldun false narrations, investigates human community in order to be acquainted with its features and laws. He has established a discipline in this field named ‘’Umran’’ {Development} which covers the beginning of his history book “Kitāb al-ʽIbār”. This discipline deals with the rules governing the community which Ibn-Khaldon claims he has discovered through a discursive method. The main criticism directed to Ibn-Khaldun’s Introduction is that there is something missing in a number of the cases of the social laws mentioned above, especially those which have to do with states. This flaw is ascribed to his way of extracting the laws. The basic problem in Ibn-Khaldun’s laws lies in two things: 1. discarding the area of methods and using a rational method in the area of empirical method 2. abiding the conditions of no method in practice.

This paper seeks to analyze and criticize the theory of “Utilization and satisfaction” in the media. According to this theory, the viewers, “desire” and “needs” are imposed on the media and they effect the process of policy-making and planning. Hence, the media should be viewer based; that is, the media should follow the viewers’ inclinations and meet their objective needs. It seems, the main claim of this theory is, generally speaking, inconsistent with some Islamic injunctions with regard to the duties of cultural institutes including mass media regarding the way of dealing with the viewers. A religious media or that which adheres to Islamic principles and has lofty ideals cannot and must not confine its attention in its cultural policies and programs to the false needs which have special objectives. In the eye of Islam, it is only real needs that should be met and observing Islamic ideals has special effect on the sublimity-seeking movement of the believers in their holy travel to achieve the ultimate aim, and that is the nearness to God. Therefore, the media which is regarded idea constrates its attention on satisfying the real and common needs of viewers.

Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper seeks to investigate the different views about social groups presented by the Qur’an and narrations and by sociology. Since society needs to have separate institutions to achieve its goal, various social groups are formed so that each of them may contribute to the achievement of the community’s goals and to promoting social solidarity. According to these two views, social groups are different in as far as their structure is concerned. The Qur’anic view of social groups pays attention, in their development and durability to the pantheistic principle as well as to abundance and it sees that God is above all things and the author of movements and of the necessities sine qua non in principle, but the sociological view disregards this principle and considers the goals and worldly values as the only dynamic force of these groups, and therefore, its durability is connected with the time of utilization of social groups.To achieve these results, this research defines the world ’’group’’, gives instances for social groups and points out their features according to these two views.

Political participation is one of the basic concepts in social and sociological studies, so that in democratic systems, forming a political system and its administration depend on political participation. Basically, a political system won’t be consistent and stable without political participation exists. Similarly, from political perspective, the more the rate of political participation, the more the stability and efficiency of the political system will increase. Among the functions of the political participation are consistency, solidarity, convergence and coordination of institutions and the forces of the political system; because a nation which is of high political participation enjoys unity, communion, unanimity and frankness. This issue will cause more and more invigoration of due public satisfaction and trust among citizens in the political sovereignty. This paper has a glance at the effects and consequences of political participation.