Journal of National Studies
Year:2006 | Volume:7 | Issue:2 (26)|Papers Count:6

The dialogue approach can better delineate Imam Khomeinis understanding of religion and identity and their relationship. But despite its high potential little has been done about this; therefore, this article tries to use a dialogue approach in determining the relationship between religion and identity from the viewpoint of Imam Khomeini. In order to achieve this, the author will initially conduct a study of the principles and doctrines related to the dialogue approach and by paying a critical glance at the current approaches in social sciences will try to determine the relationship between religion and identity in the thoughts of Imam Khomeini based on intra dialogues and inter-dialogues. The author is of the opinion that the evolution in the thoughts of Imam Khomeini was the result of the interaction between religion and identity in the dialogue to return to ones original self and encountering the western type of dialogue. As a result of this, Imam Khomeini could play a significant role in the dialogue of "returning to ones originality" which in turn helped him to fight the all-western Pahlavi dynasty and foster a trend targeting a "return dialogue to ones self or ones originality" which was incarnated in the form of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The current article determines the criteria as well as the chief characteristics of "civil identity" and attempts to study the Iranian statute by considering these criteria. Accordingly, civil identity is taken to be a feature that reidentifies people and groups within societal and symmetrical relations inside civil society. Hence, the characteristics of civil identity can be summed up in the five doctrines of being public, profitable, organizational, institutional, intentional and nongovernmental. In order to compare the Iranian constitutional law with the doctrines cited above, the author will then try to recognize three major types of individual, group and political rights and will study them within the constitutional laws of Mashrooteh and Islamic Republic of Iran.

The model used for analyzing the state of religion among students is the one which was suggested by Shojaeezand. In conducting this analysis the survey research method is used and the tool for collecting the data is questionnaire. The statistical population comprised 25092 people who were then estimated to be 400 using Cochran sampling formula. The questionnaires were handed out among students using a sampling method. The results show that the level of interests in different aspects of religion among students considerably varies. For instance, the respondents received most of the credits for their religious convictions, morals and personal religious duties and the least credits for religious knowledge and both individual and group-involved worshipping. Moreover, considering all variables and dimensions students religiousness more tilts towards a middle ground; religiousness among 45/25 percent of the students was middle, 41/5 percent little and 13/25 percent high. The research also came to the conclusion that there are three main kinds of religiousness: personal, social and also one based on religious orders with the respective ratios of 37/91, 28/32 and 33/77.

Over the last one hundred years, Kurdish nationalism came into existence (during the formation of nation-states in the region) in parallel with the growth of Turkish, Iranian and Iraqi nationalism This nationalism gave rise to several Kurdish movements who have been striving to gain political autonomy and form a federal government. The current article will study one of the Kurdish movements of Iran between the years 1979 and 1989 and it will then conduct a critical study of the strategies implemented by the Kurdish nationalists.

The importance of mythology in the formation and evolution of human knowledge is quite well-known to all human beings in different communities. This knowledge in turn makes it essential to restudy it on the wake of modem technological discoveries and inventions. Mythological stories present themselves in two very different forms of "mythologizing" and "myth narration" in modem poetry. Some abler modernist poets used both forms of mythology in their poetry in order to preserve their ancient art and culture. The author is of the belief that though modernist poets are more inclined to myth narration rather than mythologizing, there are some poets who have made artistic mythic poems which requires due attention and praise. This form of poetry is not practiced by a certain or special group of people with a particular political bias. This poetry mainly targets a change and its main goal is breaking free from all the traditional ties which are imposed upon a society because of the current conditions. Despite this, one can safely say that a modem poets approach toward mythological concepts is idealistic and has a socio-political approach. And the fact that such mythological entities as gods, Amshaspandans, heroes and heroines and also evil forces may have variant amount of presence in modernist poets poetry can be either traced to the poets personal tastes and interests or the kind of look they have toward mythology. The modernists, however, are aware of the importance of mythological concepts which are mainly products of the human psyche and try their best to help prevent the extinction of this priceless inheritance.

The query about human existence has remained one of the most important questions which has preoccupied the thoughts and minds of man for thousands of years in many different forms which in turn encouraged him to find answers to such varied questions as: "Who am I?", and "Who are we?" This attempt eventually led to an evolution of the concept of "identity" and "self". This concept has though undergone radical changes in the process of socio-cultural as well as politico-economical turns emerging in the three major forms of past or traditional identity, current or modem identity and future or postmodern identity. The earliest identity mold was initially a single entity which based the human quest for identity on individual "self', dialogues and also mega narratives. The second type of identity has an eye on the current time and place changes and studies them in the light of modern time circumstances as a collective identity and not as an individual one. The third identity mold has a glimpse on subjects and factors that are in an ambiguous, unstable and volatile condition. Quite naturally, such an identity would be taken as a quality which is unstable, multiple, and changing, something that at times was called post-modem identity.