Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies

Abstract Ziba Mir-Hosseini employs feminist theory and global human rights principles to promote and implement legal changes to Islamic law to achieve gender equality. She proposes the pursuit of an alternative “sacred spiritual project” as a means to advance gender equality through these legal reforms. To achieve this goal, four underlying assumptions inform her work that are essential for her spiritual project to be successful. (Mir-Hosseini's approach includes: 1) Advocating religion's adaptation to societal changes, prioritizing individual autonomy over religious demands. 2) Applying social constructionism to challenge binary gender concepts and traditional roles. 3) Asserting that Orientalism influenced male scholars' misinterpretation of Islam's sacred texts. 4) Embracing Western individualism to counter Traditionalist or Neo-Traditionalist Islamic teachings while overlooking Western women's sexualization experiences in her pursuit of equality. The possible consequences of her philosophy include that it might aid secularization and syncretic tendencies within the sphere of Muslim women; it might emphasize a personal interpretation of religious texts leading to distrust of male authority; it might intersect with evolving attitudes towards gender roles, family dynamics, and women’s rights within society, which may affect Muslims and their families as a whole. It might contribute to tensions already there among women.

Abstract Given the history of conflict between Iran-Iraq (1980-1988), the present paper investigates whether interpersonal contact between Iranians and Iraqis, through religious tourism, has assisted in changing the perception of the Iranians toward the Iraqis. To this aim, the researcher chooses the Arbaeen Pilgrimage—the world’s largest annual gathering in Karbala—and the interaction of the Iranians with Iraqis as its case study. To observe the cultural contact of foot pilgrims to Karbala, the researcher traveled to Iraq in 2019 for five days to participate in a 78 km. walk from Najaf to Karbala. The paper uses semi-structured face-to-face interview as research method.  To account for diverse demographic characteristics of pilgrims, potential participants were approached randomly. Overall, 24 interviews with 14 female and 10 male Iranian pilgrims were conducted. Participants comprised Iranian people aged 14 to 57. Each interview lasted from 20-35 minutes. The paper uses integrated threat theory and Contact Theory to analyze the data. It will be argued that under Gordon Allport four optimal conditions-- i.e., a.) equal status; b.) common goals; c.) intergroup cooperation, and d.) support of social and institutional authorities-- intergroup contact between Iranians and Iraqis has helped in reducing prejudice, while diminishing old hostilities.

Abstract This study attempts to assess the different ways through which Islam as a religion can impact politics. In fact, the notion that is collectively labeled as Islam and its re-interpretation as an escalating presence of religion in politics in today's world has deep layers. To distinguish a variety of these layers, each with different characteristics, they should be defined, and the type of contributions they can make to politics should be examined one by one. Mixing up the layers with each other and employing characteristics of one for another can result, and in fact has resulted in many misunderstandings in political discussions. In order to show how to distinguish the layers and how to find the dominant layer of religion in each case, the role played by Islam in three important Islamic countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will be examined. Comparing and contrasting these cases, this paper will conclude that only through identifying layers of religion in force and distinguishing the dominant ones can the actual role of religion be examined in each case study.