mohammad ali qasemi

 Considering the different dimensions of the miraculousness of the Holy Qur’an, one of the significant issues is the what and how of a model of scientific miraculousness of the Holy Qur’an. The miraculousness of the Qur’an in natural sciences is clearer and older than the issue of the miraculousness of the Qur’an in humanities. Although some views have been proposed in this regard, none of them possesses a comprehensive model. Therefore, to compensate for this gap, the question must be answered as to what model can be explicated for the miraculousness of Qur’an in humanities, and politics in particular? (problem) This issue is explored by substantiation of the four components using a narrative and rational method or historical testimony (method) in order to attain a solid and methodical model for the demonstration of the scientific miraculousness of the Holy Qur’an in humanities. (purpose) On this basis, it is possible to put forward a comprehensive and practical model to demonstrate the scientific miraculousness of the Holy Qur’an in humanities. From the perspective of the present article, the presentation of this model is dependent on the proof of four coordinated and aligned components: 1) comprehensiveness, 2) coherence and harmony, 3) superiority of the position of the Qur'an over others, and 4) affinity and companionship with the Qur'an, among which, comprehensiveness has a key role in this model. (findings)

Today the blood of umbilical cord is known as one of the rich sources of stem cells which according to various reasons is in priority for curing severe diseases and as a result enjoy a high financial value. The main question of this study is whether such a transaction is permissible and how? Surveying the evidences concerning prohibition of transacting unclean (najes) objects including blood it is concluded that due to its financial value there is no jurisprudential restriction concerning the transaction of the blood of umbilical cord and its medical and scientific applications.

Middle East and Arab world observers and analysts have been confused by rapid and chainlike spread of Arab world revolutions. This article argues that neo-patrimonialism, as Hisham Sharabi says, is the forming factor behind these events. Meanwhile, despite similarities among Arab governments, we see some differences in factors like presence of civil society institutions, global links and communications of regimes, personality of Arab autocrat leaders, intervention or non-intervention of great powers and social formation (tribal or non-tribal) of countries. These differences are among determining factors of state interaction with people and protestors. Authors claim that the less patrimonial and the more democratic state will decrease violent and rough interactions between state and people.

The principles of classification and the boundaries of Islamic thought and political jurisprudence is drawn based on belief and accordingly, the world is divided in two territories Darulislam (land of Islam) and Darulkufr (land of infidelity). On the other hand, in the contemporary world, the Islamic countries are divided into too many nations. The way of compatibility between this division and the Islamic United Ummah has attracted the attention of many Muslim thinkers and they have offered some solutions to this dichotomy. Imam Khomeini believes that Islamic Unity is the solution for this problem. For him, if the Muslims throughout the world, inspired by the Islamic Revolution, are awaken (and acquire the Islamic truth) and put aside the minor and sectarian differences and establish an Islamic government, due to the proximity of their beliefs, rules and purposes such a close relationship will appear among them that a new entity will emerge as if only one government rules in the Muslim World.

Various theories have been developed during the past decade on human security; but most of them have remained at the theorization level and have failed to offer an assessable idea at the practical domain. This research discusses the most renowned methodologies for assessment of human security including the theory of general poverty, human security assessment, human security indicator, project for change in world environment and human security, report method of human security and TillerIn the Unitedincluding economic security, health safety, social safety, environmental security and personal security. This conceptualization of human security is one of the broadest and complete perceptions of security and at the same time has been subject to harsh criticisms due to its broad inclusiveness without creating a firm systematic relationship among its elements.Indexing and models of assessment discussed in the writing are based upon such views it as more suitable than the other models.

This paper applies a classified sampling method through a field study (including questionnaires of 142 heads of rural households). It tries to analyze data in the questionnaires by using descriptive and inferential statistics, and calculation of correlation coefficient, multiple regression, and path analysis. Out of 14 correlated independent variables, 4 variables including social solidarity, wealth, membership in rural public institutions, and ownership of agricultural lands and orchards have explained over 60 percent of determinants of constructional participation. Results of the path analysis represent direct and indirect effects of the following variables on the extent of rural household head's participation in the construction programme: satisfaction, social solidarity, progress motivation, membership in rural public institutions, travel, application of mass media, ownership of agricultural lands and orchards, income, dependency on government, out of which social solidarity (Beta=0.70)and extent of rural household head's dependency on government (Beta=0.12)show the maximum and minimum path coefficients respectively.

Human security is one of the concepts which have been developed in order to go beyond the traditional sense of security and national security. With respect to human security, there is relative consensus on a fairly comprehensive definition that includes the maintenance of the critical mass of all human kinds vis-à-vis the prevailing threats, consistent with long-term human fulfillment and flourishing. This writing examines the difference of human security from related concepts such as individual security, human development, human rights and sustainable development and then describes strategies for the realization of human security, that is conservation strategy and empowerment. To propose and explain the idea of human security is of importance both theoretically and in policy-making terms. From a theoretical point of view, developing human security is considerable in a more comprehensive and complete view toward the category of security. In terms of decision-making, human security can also help design strategy, (re)formulate priorities and replace some of them, give priority to software elements along with hardware ones, boost civil society and institutions and pay attention to fairer distribution of resources.

At the world level and in general trends regarding attention to ethnic affairs, two general courses can be identified. The first is a course that pay attention to the cultural diversity and supports it and the second is a course to which the idea of a single state, a single nation and a single language is still attractive. Previous ideas and notions to the effect that diversities will fade out in the process of industrialization and modernization were refuted and even in some cases the demographic proportion of minority groups increased. The conjunction of the aforementioned trends along with postmodern thoughts that have questioned the foundations of the modern thinking and its meta-narratives such as nationhood led to the rise of the idea of cultural rights of minorities and ethnicities. However, in the Third World countries and such regions as Eastern Europe, certain factors have caused the negation of such rights and violent treatment of advocates of cultural diversity rights. These factors include the persistent attractiveness of a coherent and homogenous nation, the prevalence of conspiracy theory, regional problems, and a misperception of the globalization process.

What is real security and how it may be acquired? To answer this question requires reconsideration of previous thinkers’ theories particularly those proposed by thinkers of the realist school, which seek security under the shadow of a strong state with huge military equipment within the frameworks based on coercion and violence. The author maintains that such definition will bring about increased insecurity. Therefore, in order to achieve real and lasting security, current concepts on security must be revised and it should be sought in more fundamental processes such as cultural values, socialization processes, consensus and collective cooperation. In other words, it should be looked at from a sociological perspective. Hence, this article is of both analytical and prescriptive nature and answers the question that which parameters contribute to the sense of security and what sociopolitical and economic relations are more likely to create maximum security for individuals, nations and the entire earth planet. To do so, the author proposes and extrapolates the concept of security within a sociological and simultaneously holistic framework in order to include three individual, national and international levels. In his view, this inclusive perspective needs the explanation of the relationship between the two categories of ideology and border in its sociological version.

Trust is one of the fundamental and less-attended issues in social and political studies and it constitutes the basis of the society and social relations. Discussing the sources of trust and its importance in various spheres, this research focuses on social order. With respect to the sources, the article identifies two types of social or sociological sources on the one hand and intellectual, philosophical or doctrinal sources on the other. Two discussions of economic performance and social equality are included in the heading of the first source, and certain moral outlooks, beliefs and values are counted under the heading of intellectual sources. There are three kinds of social order and corresponding types of trust, the establishment of order that corresponds to the habit based on the habitus and it acts through custom, fame and memory; regulating order that is based on emotions and affection acting according to family relations, friends and the community; and auxiliary order that is founded upon trust as based on policy, conscious compliance with the rules and commandments and perception of their usefulness, and it acts according to cohesion, tolerance and legitimacy. These kinds of order act alongside each other and are related with the other elements of the society. Therefore, change in any of the aforementioned elements may affect the subject and issue of trust as well. Furthermore, trust has a mutual relationship with the other elements of the society and influences them as it is affected by the others. Therefore, the appearance of a problem in one of these aspects may be followed by a circle of declined trust. This is a point that should be considered in the formation of social and political developments.

The author believes that the Islamic Republic of Iran, after a period of negating and rejecting international organizations, came to the understanding that these organizations, because of the new developments and new appraisal of interests, can be, first, an instrument for the preservation of the country’s rights and security, second they may help Iran to go out of isolation, and third they may support and safeguard the Islamic Republic vis-à-vis the dangers of the unipolar world. In this relation, while tending to non-Western organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic Conference, Iran embarked on the initiative of creating new regional organizations. While established earlier, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) became more active with the adhesion of members from the newly independent former Soviet Union republics. Iran’s success in regionalism may be evaluated as somehow relative and slight. The reasons accounting for this slight success can be counted as follow: the divergence of the regional countries’ strategies, certain countries’ concern about Iran particularly small countries and the Persian Gulf states, the willingness and even eagerness of these organizations’ members to work with the United States (whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran regards such organizations essentially a means for battling against the United States) and the lack of complementary character of regional economies. Nonetheless, the organizations’ success relate largely to the creation of a forum for proposing discussions and preventing tension in other areas. Furthermore, some important economic projects and linkages among the various networks of these countries make promising the prospects for future activities and probably the promotion of European status.

Chantal Mouffe is among the thinkers who have formulated a political theory after the post-modern storm in which he considers the achievements of post-modernism and the criticisms made on modernity. To Mouffe, the modern reason has to accept its constraints and to regard human subject not as persistence, single, essential, and true but as a changing and fluid, forming creature, product of power relations and the interaction with the constructing other. So, there will not be any authentic identity which ought to be explored, developed and liberated. The product of power relations and interaction with human otherness will negate the adverse role of the other and demonstrate to the human subject that he is always affected by others and probably affect them, and not every thing is pre-existing before him. Therefore, mutual learning should be on the top of the socio-political activists’ agenda for deepened democracy and the establishment of a radical and pluralist democratic society. In this way, certain conditions should be provided so that various different minorities become able to criticize the society and the majority’s beliefs; this will contribute to mutual learning, decline in conflicts and change in the identities in a democratic space. To reach such a conception, we have to view the other as one with whom we do not feel enmity, but we oppose his viewpoints and beliefs, however we respect his right for having a different outlook and proposing it.

The study of the rights of minorities and ethnic groups in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution indicates that despite the absence of a specific and coherent pattern and the failure to make use of mainstream models for the attraction and confirmation of the minorities’ participation in this legal instrument, the rights of the groups in question are referred to and reserved in various ways. In the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, three categories of ethnic group, religious minority and denominational minority have been distinguished, and while the religious minority may be combined with the two other groups, separate rights have been provided for each of them which themselves can be amalgamated. Undoubtedly, the rights of minorities are discussed when there is kind of difference, and most of Iranians and the religious government arising from the Constitution are largely different from the religious minorities. Hence, the designers of the Constitution have paid much attention to the religious minorities whereas the mere ethnic minorities have not been subject to much attention. Apart from the seats reserved for the religious minorities in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, there is a one-article act providing for the respect for their religious rights and performance of their religious rituals. However, religious and ethnic minorities, due to their commonalties in religion, have been regarded as part of the majority Iranian society in terms of social and political rights. Therefore, in cultural domain, their rights for continuing their cultural existence have been sanctioned and the freedom of religious rituals for the Muslim denominational minorities has been respected according to the act in question.