نشریه پژوهش های ادیانی
پیاپی 20 (پاییز و زمستان 1401)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, in 30 articles, claiming respect for human dignity, freedom, and human rights. In this declaration, topics such as personal, civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights are emphasized. This paper aims to examine the views of the Catholic Church on human rights, considering the problems of human rights that are raised in comparison with Islamic views. In Catholic Christianity, there were three theological interpretations of human rights issues. In these types of interpretations, some believe that the issues of human rights and Christianity are compatible with each other and have a close relationship, which is guaranteed by the principles of the Bible. Others, taking a position against the secularists, believe that the foundations of human rights are necessarily theological and rooted in the Bible. The third group, on the contrary, insists on the incompatibility between Christian theology and human rights. Using a descriptive-analytical approach and qualitative content analysis method, this article introduces the topic of human rights and expresses different types of Catholic interpretations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition, it considers the third point of view, which expresses the incompatibility between Christian theology and human rights, to be more consistent with the theological foundations of Catholic Christianity. The article rejects the evidence of the first two views and provides evidence for the third one and concludes that the nature of Christian teachings and dogma is incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, therefore, the claim of compatibility is more political

Marriage has a special place in Zoroastrianism and Islam (Twelver Shiism). One of the types of marriage is temporary marriage. There is evidence of temporary marriage in the Zoroastrian tradition of the late Sassanid period, a marriage that can be compared to muta‘a or temporary marriage in Islam. This research, based on the documents available in Zoroastrian texts and the studies of orientalists, first deals with the existence of temporary marriage, its types, and the rights and duties of women in the Zoroastrian tradition, and then examines the same issue from the perspective of Islam and shows similarities and differences. It seems that temporary marriage in Zoroastrianism and Islam has a lot of similarities, although sometimes there are fundamental differences in the goals and conditions. Considering the traces of this type of marriage in ancient Iran, the Zoroastrian tradition, and the ignorant Arabs, we can understand that temporary marriage is not one of the founding rules of Islam. After criticism and praise, Islam has confirmed the temporary marriage in a way that justice is established for the couple and each of them achieves his/her desired benefits.

The interaction between religions in recent decades is based on coexistence and peace, and this can be the end of fruitless verbal arguments and conflicts between followers of religions. In the meantime, the followers of Abrahamic religions have adopted the same policy in the form of various religious dialogue institutions and are trying to be a help for religious diplomacy in the international arena, diplomacy that results in lasting peace and security among the followers of different religions. Of course, there are many different factors that create difficulties in the path of this policy and affect the achievement of this goal. Among these factors is the disregard for the civilizational and ethnic background of the interlocutors, which is examined as a part of the culture of each region and community. The appearance, time, place, social, cultural, and political conditions, as well as the thinking and the perception of the interlocutors about religion, and the interpretation they put forward based on their priorities, are different depending on their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. One of these institutions is the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, which always emphasizes the need for dialogue between different religions and cultures in its statements. In this research, we seek to examine the points in one of the council's statements about interreligious dialogue.

The Safavid era in Iran's history of the Islamic period is of paramount importance in terms of socio-political and religious developments. By investigating the artworks of this era, this importance is doubled, especially because a "visual revolution" occurred with regard to the importance of religious paintings and the Prophet's illustration i.e., covering his face with a white cloth for the first time. Researchers have focused more on the theological and jurisprudential influences in this visual revolution, and the influence of some schools of thought has not been paid attention to. Can the intellectual ideas of Hurufism be considered effective and related to this visual revolution? Hurufism, which was founded by Fazlollah Estrabadi (740-796 A.H.) in the 8th century and continued to exist until the reign of Shah Abbas, had a special reverence for the letters of the alphabet. They believed that divine names and attributes are manifested in the form of letters on the human face. Their guidelines can be seen in the poems of Shah Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty. Considering the importance of the face in the thought of Hurufism and its relationship with divine names and attributes, especially the Prophet (S) as the manifestation of divine attributes, it seems that there is an effective connection between their thought and covering the Prophet's (S) face in the paintings of the Safavid period. Therefore, in this research, the connection between the thoughts of Hurufism and covering the Prophet's (S) face in the paintings of the schools of Tabriz, Qazvin, and Mashhad has been investigated using a descriptive-analytical method. There are definitely other reasons that played a role in this type of illustration, which are not discussed in this article.

The emergence of Islam as an abrogator of previous religions provoked the reactions of other religions, especially Christians who considered Islam as a rival religion. These reactions and encounters increased particularly with the advent of colonialism and were revealed in the form of conversations, debates, and writing treatises against each other. The book "Refutation of Padori", written by Hoseyn Ali Shah Isfahani, is one of the important refutations in response to the claim of the Westerners. This refutation is an answer to the words of Henry Martin, known as Padori, who traveled to Iran as an agent of the Christian Missionaries Association. In this book, important issues such as the denial of the prophetic miracle, the differences between Christianity and Islam, and the slanders against the character of the Prophet of Islam have been answered. After a brief review of Henry Martin's political and preaching life, the present article examines Isfahani's theological method. In addition to Isfahani's words, this paper deals with the findings of other scholars in the field of theology and history. The results show that Isfahani had a special emphasis on the beliefs of the other party and answered Padori's objections by relying on rational arguments, using allegorical arguments and theological rules. However, sometimes he did not consider all aspects and hence controversial arguments can be seen in his work..

In the Sassanid era, Zoroastrian, Christian, and Buddhist religious texts were translated into Middle Persian. During this period, Zoroastrian priests, after compiling the Avestan texts, translated and interpreted them into Middle Persian. These translation and interpretation of Avesta are called Zand. The method of translating these texts is word for word and hence the translators adhered to the words and syntax of the Avestan language. These translations were literal, that is, the translators chose a word in Pahlavi or Middle Persian for each Avestan word and considered the order of the words in Avestan sentences. In choosing the Pahlavi equivalent of these words, attention has been paid to the appearance of the Avestan terms as well as the derivation that the translator intended for them. The sentence style of the Avestan text is also preserved and they do not have the usual construction sentences of the Pahlavi language (Middle Persian).  In this article, we seek to examine the differences between the important Avestan text of Visprad and Zand, one of the important texts of the Zoroastrian religion.

One of the important theoretical and technical sources of Iranian art in the past centuries is Manichean art. In the area where Manichean thought has penetrated, the artworks recovered in Western China are very significant. This importance is primarily due to the number of artworks left from this land, and then due to the high technical level of those works compared to other Manichaean regions. Since most of the researchers have studied the techniques used in these works, the author of this paper has tried to examine the Manichaean works recovered in Western China with a philosophical and wisdom perspective, and seeks to analyze how they influenced and were influenced in connection with the most important school in that area, namely Mahayana Buddhism, as well as the native art of the region, namely Uyghur art. In this article, two Manichean concepts/ideas of "liberation" and "return of light" have been examined for a better explanation.

Fasting is one of the main obligations of Manawi society. In addition to one-day fasts, a number of Manichaeans also had two-day fasts; fasting two consecutive days without breaking in between. The main question of the current research is the duration of the two-day fasts. Since the time of the Manichaean fasts is stated with the index of constellations in the Babylonian solar-lunar chronologies, an astronomical extraction is needed in a period of about 1700 years to determine the current time of the fasts. Using a comparative method, this article seeks to examine the number of normal days of the Manichaeans in a week, month, and year based on the library sources with a critical analytical approach. Then, using modern astronomical software, it extracts the exact duration of two-day fasts. A significant number of researchers believe that the influence of Christianity on Manoism is clear, and they search for the fundamental roots of the Mani religion in the numerous Christian sects of that time. Therefore, with the help of the religious chronology of Christians in the era of Mani's life, the reason for the fasting of the Manichaeans in that astronomically extracted time is also clarified. The results of the research show that December 25, which is the birth of Christ, is the most focal time of the two-day fasts of the Manichaeans, and other issues related to the fasts of the Manichaeans become meaningful with regard to this occasion.
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India is one of the lands that have been the cradle of many beliefs and religious and philosophical ideas of human societies. Circles and squares are among the basic forms in ancient art and architecture that have been used in the design of Hindu temples. The sacred geometry used in Hindu temples is based on the famous knowledge known as Vastu Shastra. The current research was carried out with a descriptive and analytical method, and it aimed to study the knowledge of the sacred art of Mandala and its effect on the formation and expansion of the architectural spaces of Hindu temples. This research came to the conclusion that Hindu temples can be examined from two perspectives. From the first view, temples were studied in terms of infrastructure and the way their maps were executed. From this perspective, the implementation of the instructions of Vastu Shastra Mandala was one of the requirements. The second view is in terms of their form and facade decorations. The result of the study showed that the changes applied in the superstructure of the temples were influenced by Indian myths and archetypes and the form and content of this superstructure expressed mythical concepts.

The definition of mystical experience and religious experience, as well as the relationship between them, has always been one of the issues discussed by religious and mystical researchers. Due to the diversity of so-called mystical and religious experiences and also due to the ambiguity in the two terms "religion" and "mysticism", we are faced with various definitions of these experiences and it is difficult to propose a consensus definition.One of the proponents in this field is Jerome Gellman, a contemporary philosopher of religion and researcher of mysticism. With an innovative design, Gellman divides mystical and religious experiences into four categories: general mystical experience, specific mystical experience, general religious experience, and specific religious experience. He defines each of these terms separately and mentions specific examples for each to make them clearer. In this article, we will first quote his point of view and then examine and evaluate it. In our opinion, although Gellman's innovative view has positive aspects, it is ultimately a proposed definition that is neither comprehensive nor able to solve the problems in the special field completely he is interested in i.e. philosophy.

The word "love" in literature in a general sense and in mystical literature in a special sense is one of the most frequent words in different religious traditions and contains various interpretations and analyses. In the epistemology of love, love is considered secondary knowledge. More attention has been paid to this type of investigation in the modern world. But a deep look at the works of the early scholars proves that despite the fact that they were centuries away from Kant's critique of reason and the emergence of epistemology, in their words and writings they addressed love as secondary knowledge and explored its dimensions. In the meantime, mystics such as Augustine in the Christian tradition and Ahmad Ghazali in the Islamic tradition had a significant impact on the epistemology of love, and in this field, they put forward their views not as lovers but as researchers of love. The findings of this research, which was carried out with a descriptive-analytical method based on library sources, show that despite the commonalities between Ahmad Ghazali's and Augustine's views on the epistemology of love, there are also some differences between them. Augustine analyzed the word "love" in detail, while Ghazali confined himself to general expressions. However, their views on the issue of the unity of love, lover, and beloved are so similar to each other that one can speak of the identity of their views. Both religious thinkers believed that "love" means will and desire and it is a covenant to return to God, however, Augustine considered the origin of this will and desire to be the man's will and Ghazali considered their origin to be the divine grace. At the same time, they had different and sometimes similar views on the types of love and their harm. Ghazali considered love to be single, whether divine or human, but Augustine only believed in the love of God. They completely disagreed on the damages or epistemic barriers of love; but they expressed common signs of love, such as faith, the lover's (man's) submission to the beloved (God), and the happiness of the lover.

The contemporary theologian, Rudolph Otto, believed that in the history of religions, tremendum of the numinous has been looked at morally and rationally, and less has been dealt with from an intuitive point of view. Therefore, he did not consider this interpretation to be appropriate and invented the term "Numinus". In his analysis, one of the important dimensions in the experience of the numinous is the element of "tremendum". The purpose of this article is to show the strengths and weaknesses of Rudolf Otto's thought in the analysis of holy matter. The findings of the research indicate that Otto considered the intellectual view of holy matter against the intuitive view of it and tried to put intuition as the principle. But from the perspective of transcendental wisdom, in knowing the holy matter or God Almighty, the intellectual view is not opposed to the intuitive view; rather these two bases are harmonious and complementary. According to Otto, tremendum of the numinous is different from other fears. This is what the followers of transcendental wisdom have considered to be the difference between khawf (fear) and khashiyat (reverence). Otto's theory is like essentialism against structuralism.