POLITICAL STUDIES OF ISLAMIC WORLD
Year:2017 | Volume:6 | Issue:2 (22) |Papers Count:7

This article focuses on the geopolitics of the region and the relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia from 2003 to the present. The main question is “ why relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the regional geopolitical reached the position of stalemate and opposition? The main claim is that with the occupation of Iraq, undermining the balance of power and the emergence of the Shiite government, the identity / location bipolarization process of Persian-Gulf Region was strengthened. After developments in the Arab world in 2011 and the break of regional / trans-regional coalition, the process led to a power vacuum in the region's geopolitics. In the process of transition and fluidity of regional order, with the activation of contextual as well as political elements / identity geopolitics of the region, the dual strategy of "checks and balances" basing on the triple coalition-building mechanism, the proxy war and geo-economic competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia as the two rival regional hegemons is pursued. The two countries have been trying to control regional security and redesign their desired ordering pattern through power projection and influence of multiple-geopolitical processes and elements. Finally, the method of the present article is based on descriptive and explanatory causal / analytical and data collection is conducted through the library, journals, articles and Internet resources.

Following the set of movements called 'Arab Spring' which surrounded most of the Middle East and North African countries, Syria also threw into crises. Most analysis concentrated on the competition of big international and geopolitical powers in this crisis. Although the foreign variable plays a very influential role, the role played by the internal factors should not be also ignored. Therefore, this study is an attempt to put the issue in the following question: what is the effect of the internal factors in continuation and entrenchment of the Syrian crisis? To answer this question, the authors tried to evaluate the following hypothesis using the discourse analysis methodology of Laclau and Mouffe: the manner of structuring the conflicting discourses is the sign of their in-depth differences in such a way that it has made a minimal common denominator of the Syrian future impossible, as the main reason of its continuation and deepening. Based on factors like discursive cohesion and influential strength, three discourses of 'Ba'ath', 'Takfiri-Jihadi' and 'the Kurds self-rule model' were chosen among many others. Surveying on the signs of each discourse seems essential to explain the relations between Syrian crisis and the mentality of the players involved. Therefore, through studying the ways of arranging the chains of equivalent of various discourses, this study tries to explicate the reasons for the continuation and deepening of the crisis from the viewpoint of discursive conflict of internal factors as one of its two main crisis bases.

According to theories of International Relations, the future international system is "a multi-polar multi-civilizational system". The brilliant history of Islamic civilization indicates that this civilization is one of the most important rivals of Western civilization. Currently, in the Islamic world, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Turkey have more theories about the core of civilization than others. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, posed the issue of "modern Islamic civilization". At the same time, we are witnessing the formation of the "Neo Ottomanism" in Turkey, “ civilizational Islam” in Malaysia and "Wahhabi Islam" in Saudi Arabia. Each of these countries is trying to introduce themselves as the best model about “ civilization Islam” in the Islamic world. The main question of the article is which of these four countries has more civilizational capacities for centering in the Islamic world? Extraction of the civilization elements shows the weaknesses and strengths, and the opportunities and threats of these four countries. According to the findings of the research, the Islamic Republic of Iran has more capacities than others to become the core of civilization in the Islamic world.

Religious violence has become a major culprits blamed for the failure of peace and tolerance in recent decades in the world. Islamic fundamentalists have been considered at the forefront of groups condemned for committing the terrorist acts which make the violence as the natural feature of today's world through interpreting and applying the Islam in a radical fashion. To apprehend this issue, it is necessary to explore intellectual roots of fundamentalism as an ideological agenda presented and fostered in certain Islamic texts. Therefore, this paper tends to tackle with a number of elusive and problematic texts which historically continued to justify and support fundamentalist reading of Islam. For this purpose, Major writings of three reference authors of Islamic fundamentalism, Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, Ibn Taymiyyah and Abu A'la Mawdudi, have been selected(13 Book). The findings suggest that the violence is represented in three different but interrelated ways in the texts. On one hand, there is a visible and objective violence which forges and defines an “ Other” as a black spot tarnishing divine realm, which in turn demands to destruction as death of “ other” . On the other hand, there is an invisible and subjective violence that calls for the destruction of earthly logic embodied as Non-Islamic law. This type of violence heralds a divine emancipation. In contrary to this type of violence, there is a third type of violence that not only aims to devastate the law but also strives to perform the law of God and Islamic logic (Sharia) as a replacement for the materialistic logic.

Sufism has many followers in Egypt as a powerful social stream. The main question of the present paper is that what is the nature of Sufism in Egypt, as well as the fundamental components that make up it? Along with this main question, two sub-questions are raised: What role has Sufism played in the process of the January 25th revolution, as well as the post-revolutionary developments in Egypt? And what are the opportunities and obstacles facing the Islamic Republic of Iran to cooperate with this stream? The present research utilizing the historical method and comparative approach as well as basing on the theory of identity and its role in collective action seeks to obtain a correct recognition of the nature of this process relying on the intellectual, organizational and historical elements of the constituent through studying the Sufism political behaviors in Egypt in Pots-Mubarak era, then, examines the reasons for Sufism in politics during the post-revolutionary period of Egypt's 25th January 2011 and ultimately examines the opportunities and obstacles of Iranian cooperation and the stream of Egyptian mysticism.

Islamic Republic of Iran is faced closely with records like the numerous neighbors, the diversity of geopolitics, ethnic and linguistic heterogeneous countries, maximum production, the drug trade as well as the terrorist actions in its surrounding environment. In the meantime, Iraq is a country that is also considered part of the Arabic Middle East geopolitical area, on the one hand, and the most heterogeneous country, ethnic and language, on the other hand. Aggressive actions of former Iraqi officials, political instability, the creation of a favorable and appropriate environment for the emergence and activity of Takfiri groups are the factors challenging and threatening Iran's national security. Although democratic Iraq – with Shiite majority in power structures-is a good choice for Iran's national security, challenging the option in terms of geopolitical strategy would lead to three scenarios: 1. powerful Iraq with a dictator leadership 2. decomposed Iraq with a power vacuum, and 3. Iraq federalism with Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis as the main actors. This study seeks to find that which of the three aforementioned scenarios would bring about the least challenge and the greatest opportunity for the Iranian national security? The findings suggest that scenario number 3 enjoys this potential.

Today, water-resources shortages have been considered as one of the major issues on the agenda of governments. Some geopolitics theorists consider the 21st century as the hydro-politics century and believe that most conflicts and regional wars in the world would be due to water-shortage crisis. Hydro politics is the study of conflict and cooperation between nations over the sharing of water resources. Homer Dixon believes that Future wars as well as civil and social violence would be caused mainly by lack of water, food, forests and fisheries resources. While both the modern states as well as countries highly dependent on renewable sources will be involved together over these sources. It is noteworthy that the status of water resources in countries has been so important from a theoretical perspective that the concept of virtual water is on the agenda of the governments as a way to prevent water loss and optimal use of water resources. This paper applies an analytical-descriptive method as well as library resources and websites to survey the condition of water resources, especially fresh water and its scarcity in selected Islamic countries, particularly in Iran. The findings show that in some Islamic countries, particularly Iran, freshwater rand usable resources are not in good condition. And, in the future, there will be challenges and conflicts over water resources as there already exists protests and riots over the sharing of water in Iran.