Peace Studies of Religions (صلح پژوهی ادیان)

Since time religions have given people answers to the essential questions of life – including those that regard living together. Let us be reminded of to the so-called “Golden Rule”, which is found in many religions. We might also recall the Catholic Social Teaching, which in the course of recent history gave and still gives answers to questions and problems of human coexistence in view of numerous social and political challenges. It should not go unmentioned that Islam sees itself as a political religion - religion and politics are inseparably linked to each other in Islam. The always relevant answers of the different world religions to the questions of living together are based on different and differentiated philosophical-theological concepts. But despite all these differences, are there not similarities that need to be worked out and made fruitful for the present in the face of a growing global heterogeneity and global challenges?

among different theories concerning the relation between spirituality or ethics and politics, the acceptable one is the inseparability of spirituality and politics. Because, based on a rational conception of the world, there is not any convincing justification for separation between the two categories. In a true understanding of religion, there is no separation between religion and politics and all religio-political principles, teachings, values must be simultaneously ethical, rational and just. Therefore, there is no space for any type of immorality, irrationality and injustice; because, they are against the world’s objective; meaning man’s highest perfection. If all are not just towards one another based on the Divine Revelation, man and societies cannot improve their spiritual aspects of life. The schools of thought which consider religion’s objective as mere individual salvation, neither pay attention to religion’s socio-political aspects, nor understand its socio-political dimensions. In between, the political systems and politicians that intend to acquire, preserve and increase more and more power, and know that the Divine Books and the Holy Prophets are the greatest obstacles on their way, try to hide the true understanding of religion and keep people ignorant about them. For them only the theories, which can explain dirty hands and legitimize the absolute authority of domination of wealth and power, are very beneficial and should be supported.

The secularism of the western world is characterized by the separation of religion and state, of religion and science, of religion and economy or of religion and the individual freedom. Due to its strong connection between religion and politics, religion and the society it is not this way in the Islamic world. So it is no surprise that there are tensions between the Islamic and the secular Western world. We will discuss today about one of the biggest problems of today.

The modern democratic constitutional state sees itself first and foremost as the protective order of human freedom, as a guarantor of human rights. The state is at the service of freedom. That is why it is not the state, but man as a person and the society formed by him that is at the center of the political order. The democratic constitutional state, as the political organization of society for the attainment of the common good, must guarantee the freedom of society, i.e. the persons and communities of persons living and working together in it, and give it an order as good as possible.

This paper outlines ethnic segregation in urban social space using the standard model of the Chicago School and complements recent empirical observations. Poverty areas, in particular, are ethnically highly segregated, while ethnic segregation has generally been declining for years. Starting points of social work are the promotion of education, counselling and sponsorship models as well as the promotion of participation in local political processes. On the one hand, they can mitigate the negative effects of ethnic segregation and, on the other, promote social advancement in a sustainable manner.

According to Islamic and Qur’anic basis, monotheism is the core of Islamic Art and the real art is the one that calls toward spirituality and remembering God in the life and condemns any form of artwork which hinders human being from religiosity and divinity, (Qur’an 31:6). Qur’an from one hand addresses the story of prophet Josef, as the masterpiece of Qur’anic narratives (12:3) but it condemns, from the other hand, using ugly art to show distance human being from Divine beauties, (31:20). The main characteristics of Divine and Islamic Art is that the artist by his or her artwork tries to gain proximity to Allah, the Almighty, the creator of whole universe, and getting away from the worldly desires by observing the universe and the nature by realistic approaches than the eyes of benefit or loss. This perspective is totally different from the ugly or human-centered art which looks at everything by the vision of subjectivity and none or anti-metaphysical perspective looking at world on the basis of worldly benefits, desires, lust, hatred, disparity and animosity. This article intends to survey over several aspects of Islamic Art, from philosophical, spiritual and religious perspective.it will also illustrate some instances from Qur’an or from Hadith (Narration) from the holy prophet of Islam, Muhammad (S) and his Ahlulbayt (A.S). In this article Iranian Shi’a art which is the combination of the art of Iranian culture and also Iranian Shi’ite perspective on religion will also be elaborated on.