مطالب

This interdisciplinary study is a mystical reconsideration of Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love (2011), FRL hereafter, based on the theologian Mircea Eliade’s perspective on the notion of sacred life as hierophany. Considering the huge bulk of reviews analyzing the Eastern Sufi aspect of the novel as a mystical stand, this investigation probes the compatibility of Eliade’s Universalist spiritual stand with the Sufi perspective reflected in the novel, considering the Islamic tradition through focusing on Maulana’s mystical transformation via Shams of Tabriz. It also pays attention to the Western cultural manifestations absent in most of the reviews and considers the Orientalist features attributed to the novel by some critics. The investigation concludes that the form of Sufism represented in the novel is close to Maulana’s original perspective, and there is a spiritual congruity between Maulana’s Islamic stand, being affected by Ibn Arabi, and Eliade’s Western Christian one. This justifies the depiction of the characters’ mystical transformation within FRL as being touched by Islamic principles and not totally submissive before the Orientalist discourse.

Objective:After nearly three decades since the formation of the Council for the Islamicization of Universities, it is necessary to examine the policy of Islamicization of universities from various angles and dimensions. In this regard, the research question is: what theoretical and practical challenges does the policy of Islamicization of universities face in Iran?Method: To answer this question, qualitative analysis and content analysis of available sources, especially the views of policymakers and experts in this field, have been used, and the necessary investigation has been conducted by analyzing the themes of these views.Results:After nearly three decades since the formation of the Council for the Islamicization of Universities, it is necessary to examine the policy of Islamicization of universities from various angles and dimensions. The research hypothesis is that "the lack of a common understanding of the necessity and possibility of religious science and the Islamic university and its negative policy consequences, the accumulation of policies and the multiplicity and overlap of the duties of decision-making institutions in the matter of Islamicization of universities, the abstract nature of executive assignments, the weak communication between policymakers and stakeholders and actors at the operational level, and the lack of an efficient mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the policy of Islamicization" are among the most important theoretical and practical challenges of the policy of Islamicization of universities.Conclusion: The results indicate that stakeholders do not have adequate participation in decision-making related to this policy. Furthermore, five different institutions are responsible for guiding and overseeing the implementation of the policies, which this institutional multiplicity and policy density creates problems. It is also unclear exactly what guidance and oversight each of these institutions should provide. In reality, there is no clear distinction between the different natures of oversight, for example, macro oversight, executive oversight, etc. At the level of monitoring and evaluation, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, the Council for the Islamization of Universities, and the Steering Committee for the Comprehensive Scientific Map of the Country have not yet published any monitoring reports or evaluations of the policies for the Islamization of universities. This approach prevents the strengths and weaknesses from being revealed and hinders the possibility of benefiting from the corrective suggestions of researchers and scholars.

This study aims to examine the validity of prescribed AI-generated exercise interventions for general health and weight loss. This study developed an AI-generated exercise program using the Delphi method. The Delphi process involved administering a structured questionnaire within the relevant domain, whereby a panel of experts evaluated the appropriateness of the program. To assess validity, three established measures were employed: the Content Validity Ratio (CVR), the Content Validity Index (CVI), and the Impact Score (IS). In addition, the Fleiss’ Kappa coefficient (κ) was calculated to determine the degree of agreement (reliability) among the experts. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS software version 27 and Microsoft Excel. The IS indicates that all exercises achieved the required level of validity. Also, based on the CVI and CVR, all exercises demonstrated acceptable content validity for general health and weight loss. However, the negative kappa value suggests poor agreement among the experts for the mentioned variables. The findings indicate that while platforms such as ChatGPT-4o can produce broadly appropriate exercise content, expert agreement on the validity of these protocols was very low. Accordingly, AI should be viewed as a supplementary tool that can assist in designing individualized health and weight management programs.