ISLAMIC REVOLUTION STUDIES
Year:2015 | Volume:12 | Issue:40|Papers Count:13

Given the presence of Islam as the main factor defending middle eastern nations on the one hand and failure and invalidity of active and claiming contemporary discourses and paradigms in this region's political arena on the other hand, Islam and Islamic orientation is the natural choice of middle eastern nations. This is particularly important since this awakening and new uprisings in Arabic Middle East herald a new era in international relations which may instigate a kind of currently forming geopolitical transition and consolidate new theories of international relations. Therefore, through a descriptive analysis, this article tries to study the impact of Islam and its central role in recent developments and therefore believes what has been influential in these public uprisings is the factor of identity, formation and revival of an Islamic identity which expresses itself more than any other factor.

This article conducts a comparative study on the outlook for emancipation of mankind in Islamic theory and critical theory of international relations. Through a comparison of meta-theoretical principles and discussions about the content of Islamic theory and critical theory of International relations, the author tries to find out where these two theoretical approaches converge and diverge on the "emancipation cause". To answer this inquiry, the author claims that although both Islamic theory and critical theory have put the emancipation cause at the center of their attention, they have a fundamentally different interpretation and definition in this respect. They depict a totally different picture of the outlook of emancipation whose main roots should be traced into a meta-theoretical level and in their fundamentally ontological difference.

This article is aimed at the study of reasons why Iran supports Hezbollah and what implications this will entail on various aspects of Islamic Republic of Iran's national security through the application of constructivist and neo-realistic point of view. Therefore, this study seeks to find an answer for this main inquiry why Islamic Republic of Iran supports Hezbollah of Lebanon? The hypothesis of this article is that Islamic Republic of Iran supports Hezbollah to provide different aspects of its security namely physical security and the security of its identity. Findings of this article using descriptive analysis implies that while it is necessary to apply these two theories to analyze the subject, with constructivist and neo-realistic theories, the influence on different aspects of security of identity and physical identity and influence by these two can be analyzed respectively.

"Organization" is among the most important factors exerting impact on the reduction of the power of the previous regime and empowerment of revolutionaries and finally power transition and the victory of Islamic revolution. Therefore it has been considered and highlighted by some theorists of the revolution. This group of theorists insists on rational aspects and components in the process of revolution and considers "organization" as an instance of rational action. This article tries to study "organization" in the Islamic revolution. For this end in the theoretical level, after exploration and re-identification of different aspects of this concept in Charles Tilly and Ted Robert Gurr's theory, a conceptual model of organization has been outlined with an integrative approach. Based on documentary research and in line with the proposed model, instances and evidences have been provided for the realities of Iranian revolution on the empirical level.

Despite the presence of some internal currents supporting a velvet revolution in Iran and the existence of elections as a natural ground as well as some internal cultural damages which have emerged in recent years hand in hand with extensive US and western effort to soft subversion through a velvet revolution in 2009 presidential election, there were grounds for a revolution in Iran similar to Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. However for more important and more fundamental reasons which are deeply rooted in differences between Iran and those countries, this velvet revolution failed in Iran; since there is an specific and delicate difference between the possibility for the emergence of a phenomenon and the possibility of its victory which should be differentiated. Therefore, although some grounds and factors are necessary for a phenomenon to emerge but these grounds are necessary conditions and for its successful crystallization, other grounds and elements are required which are considered as sufficient condition.

From the very beginning, mosques have turned into an inalienable part of Muslim life and continued its function in later historical periods, something which has not been the subject of but a few individual works. Therefore, mosques need to be more investigated to grasp their all-inclusive role especially in the important events such as Islamic revolution. Thus the question is still: what functions had mosques had in the political mobilization leading to the victory of Islamic revolution? Probably long credibility of mosques and their correspondence with social culture and beliefs have turned them into revolutionary organizations such that in comparison with modern civil organizations, mosques took over such organizations. This article is aimed at first expressing unparalleled importance of mosques and then mentioning their being institutions in historical events especially in Shiite society. It is only possible through a descriptive analysis to achieve this end. Highlighting the necessity of mosques' role in the preservations of developments they have created themselves is among the findings of this paper.

This article primarily seeks to find out what mechanisms had empowered rival discourses of Islamic Republic of Iran to marginalize the cultural discourse of its ruling system. Based on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, this paper primarily claims that cultural policy of Islamic Republic of Iran has become shaky in some cases due to weakness in marginalization or promotion of cultural discourse. This shakiness has resulted from unavailability of a discourse and failure to distinguish. Applying discourse analysis it has been demonstrated here that the discourse of cultural policy has been extremely inefficient in utilizing two instruments of promotion and marginalization to create hegemony and that the discourse has merely been present in macro level in the form of generally notified policies. In operational programs of cultural arms of the system, they have not received appropriate marginalization and promotion and even in some cases the cultural discourse has become juxtaposed with negative values and in fact, cultural system has acted against the official cultural discourse.

Due to weak and corrupted economic and political structures of their ruling system and domination of foreign powers, Muslim societies have always been inspired by Islamic revolution of Iran; since Islamic revolution of Iran is considered an identity discourse in direct relation with nearby regions with the same beliefs. The most important measures for this relation can be explored within the framework of nodal point (juxtaposition of religion and politics) and floating signifiers (fighting against arrogance, fighting against tyranny, justice seeking, freedom seeking, …) and comparing them within the discourse of Islamic revolution and revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt whose resultant is identity seeking uprisings in Islamic societies and is analyzed under the influence of political Islam. On this basis, it is due to the discourse of political Islamism that Islamic revolution of Iran has managed to maintain its historical continuity and expand itself. This expansion is indebted to nodal point of the discourse of Islamic revolution of Iran (juxtaposition of politics and religion) as well as its floating signifiers resonated in the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt.

This article primarily inquires into whether Bahrainis' revolution can be analyzed within the framework of the concept of Islamic awakening with its main indexes namely being Islamic, public and anti-arrogance expressed by the supreme leader. The hypothesis of this article is that Muslims revolution in Bahrain is not an event happened overnight merely influenced by revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt rather it is a historical process of Islamic awakening which has found an appropriate opportunity to emerge and will continue its path with characteristics such as being Islamic, public and anti-arrogance. Islamic awakening in Bahrain is rooted in some internal grounds such as anti-Islamic policies of Al-Khalifa regime, tyranny against and systematic suppression of majority Shiite population and religious apartheid prevalent in this country on the one hand and influenced by a number of external factors such as the impact of Islamic revolution of Iran on the people of this country and extensive suggestibility of Al-Khalifa regime from Saudi Arabia as well as the relations of this regime with the US and Zionist regime on the other hand.

Authors of this article have initially reviewed the constitution and its capacities concerning one of the highest levels of participation namely the presidency and have finally organized the process of research through the study of foundations and documents of different ideas in the field of women's political participation generally and women's presidency particularly with an emphasis on the nature of presidency in the existing constitution taking welayat-e faqih into account. This article studies and criticizes evidences put forth by opponents of women's presidency explaining the nature of presidency in a system built upon the idea of welayat-e faqih and it has been emphasized that in the light of political thought of Islam, women's presidency especially in the current structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not entail a constraint from the viewpoint of shari'ah rather the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran, from the viewpoint of its foundations and the trend of its ratification as well as discourse capacity of article no.115, has secured an especial potential to consider and recognize this right.