۱.
: The post-colonial conditions provided a good opportunity for Muslim women to shift their strategic position from a unit of analysis for westerners to the agent of active knowledge production. For many, Islamic feminism is considered as an alternative knowledge to bring about an epistemological emancipation from Orientalist ideas. Nevertheless, the present study shows, this is not free of ambiguity and problems. This study focuses on a book entitled Women and Gender in Islam by Leila Ahmed (1992) as one of the most influential sources of Islamic feminism, which is considered as an international academic source and is part of the most frequent textbooks in syllabi in American universities for decades Regarding the issue of the current article, that is, the challenges of thinking on the boundary of Islam and modernity for Muslim women, the supremacy of presuppositions and modern gender ideas have been explored in Islamic feminism. This superiority of discourse is to the extent that by using the critical discourse analysis method and understanding intertextual connections with other first-hand Islamic historical and jurisprudential sources, Ahmad's reading can be much distorted. As such, the paper tries to unveil the necessity of re-considering internal ambivalences and discursive complications of the book, considering its logic in approaching early marriage, polygamy, and veiling through Ahmed's creation of complex binaries such as Jahiliah (ignorance) vs. Islam and the Prophet vis-a-vis his female counterparts.
۲.
The Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is one of the infectious and contagious ones called 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease. Its outbreak was first reported on December 31, 2019, in the Chinese city of Wuhan that quickly spread throughout the country within a few weeks and spread to several other countries, including Italy, the United States, and Germany, within a month. This disease was officially reported in Iran on February 19, 2020. It is important to detect and analyze high risk zones and establish regulations according to the data and the analyses of Geographic Information System (GIS) in epidemiological situations. Meanwhile, the GIS, with its location nature, can be effective in preventing the breakdown of Covid-19 by displaying and analyzing the dangerous zones where people infected with the disease. In fact, recognizing regions based on the risk of getting the disease can influence social restriction policies and urban movement rules in order to prepare daily and weekly plans in different urban regions. In this applied and analytical research, high and low risk zones of Tehran have been identified by using the random forest algorithm which is used for both classification and regression. The algorithm builds decision trees on data samples and then predicts data from each of them, and finally chooses the best solution. In this research, 7 effective criteria have been used in the level of risk of regions toward Covid-19 virus, which is: subway paths and bus for rapid transits, hospitals, administrative and commercial complexes, passageways, population densities and urban traffic. After providing the map of high-risk zones of Covid-19, the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC) has been used for evaluation. The area under the curve (AUC) obtained from ROC shows an accuracy of 98.8%, which means the high accuracy of this algorithm in predicting high and low zones toward getting the Covid-19 disease.
۳.
: Salafism and Sufism are two old Islamic movements that have had major conflicts throughout the history of Islam, which were mainly related to aspects of adherence to and respect for Islamic law and jurisprudence and different interpretations of religious texts. Simultaneously, these two movements have also had some interactions with each other, and there have emerged some individuals or groups who have combined a number of the manifestations of Sufi practices and actiond with those of Salafi and thus creating Salafi Sufism or Sufi Salafism. The Central Asian region is the cradle of a great number of Sufi orders. It has delivered great mystics to the Islamic society. Moreover, several signs of Sufism can be observed in its people’s general culture. However, the people’s inclination towards Islam at the time of liberation from the yoke of communism and the formation of Islamic groups and parties – who wanted Islam to play a greater role in governing the society – besides some countries’ cultural and propaganda exercise, it has led to the creation of various Salafi groups in the region. Naturally, Salafi’s entry into Central Asia’s mystical culture paves the way for the creation and growth of a discourse that has nurtured a combination of Salafism and Sufism in itself. The present study examines the Salafi Sufis in Central Asia and the Sufi-Salafi interactions in this region. Although there are many references on Sufism and Salafism in Central Asia, no independent reference on Salafi Sufism was found in the land.
۴.
One of the most complex issues in understanding the evolution of human society is religion. However, religion in this sense is not the spiritual dimension of confessional or rhetorical form; rather it is a social phenomenon that has long been considered as one of the fundamental components of human society. Archaeological excavations often lead to the unearthing of movable and immovable objects that bear an obvious symbolic insignia; this is suggestive of the roles of beliefs and convictions in the formation of these objects. For instance, during the Neolithic period in some archeological sites such as Catalhoyuk in Anatolia, Sheikhiabad in Kermanshah and a number of other sites in the Near East, some objects were found that can be considered as symbolic made for specific purposes according to humans’ rituals and beliefs. In the present article, we study the views and theories of anthropologists and sociologists about religions, and the views of archaeologists about symbolism and religion in the contemporary world and in the beginning of the Neolithic period. Employing an interpretive approach, we examine and analyze possible intentions behind construction and functions of these symbolic objects.
۵.
Shadow education, defined as private supplementary tutoring provided beyond the mainstream educational systems and formal learning spaces, has become a widespread phenomenon throughout the world. The present study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological research approach to investigate the status and effects of shadow education practice in general education and teaching the English language in Iran. Through the purposive sampling technique, 10 ELT teachers and 10 EFL college students who had the experience of being engaged in such teaching practices and learning experiences were selected and interviewed. After conducting a thematic analysis of the transcribed data, the researcher obtained the following themes with regard to the nature and influence of shadow education in teaching English in Iran: (1) shadow education compensating for inefficiency in teaching, (2) shadow education providing more student-centered and humanistic teaching methods, (3) shadow education facilitating access to higher education, (4), shadow education creating business opportunities and (5) shadow education perpetuating social inequalities in the society. Finally, it was suggested that due to its tremendous growth and ubiquitous presence along with the mainstream curriculum in educational ecology, shadow education must receive appropriate attention from educational authorities, teachers and researchers in the country.
۶.
The study of civilizations of South and Southeast Asia seem meaningless without an insight on Hinduism and Buddhism that exerted an enormous influence in the region before the arrival of Islam. The two beliefs, though originated in India, but contributed greatly to the development of socio-cultural relations among countries as far as Afghanistan in the west and China, Japan, and Indonesia in the east. About the beginning of the Common Era, Indian merchants may have settled there, bringing Hindu and Buddhist priests with them. These religious men were patronized by rulers who converted to Hinduism or Buddhism. The earliest material evidence of Hinduism in Southeast Asia comes from Borneo, where late 4th-century Sanskrit inscriptions testify to the performance of Vedic sacrifices at the behest of local chiefs. Chinese chronicles attest an Indianized kingdom in Vietnam two centuries earlier. The dominant form of Hinduism exported to Southeast Asia was Shaivism, though some Vaishnavism was also known there. The current study tries to explain how Hinduism and Buddhism could influence Socio-Cultural Relations between Pre-Islamic India and Afghanistan taking into account of historical records and inscriptions.
