Abstract Discussions about the relationship between religion and state or religion and politics in the contemporary era have been discussed more than in any other period, especially in relation to the religion of Islam. However, Muslims in most post-Islamic historical periods have had religious states that were either characterized by Islamic descriptions or attributed themselves to Islam. However, the existence and continuity of states with Islamic titles or appearances in the geography of the Islamic world and throughout the history of Islamic societies have never meant that these states are real and complete examples of “State in Islam”. Therefore, it has always been felt that Muslim states throughout history, as a matter of fact, should be compared with the state in Islam, as a truth, to be compared to the extent to which these states have adapted or deviated from the Islamic standard state. In this regard, the present article, while reviewing and analyzing the book “History of State Transformation in Islam” and raising fundamental issues in the field of principles, goals, and functions of the state of the Prophet of Islam, as a standard Islamic state, tries to evaluate the success of the work in achieving its intended purpose.

Abstract The book of “Sociology of Modernity, Liberty and Discipline” presents a historical-sociological narrative of Western modernity. In this book, different types of modernity - Western Europe, Soviet Socialism, and Western America - have been studied with a historical approach. The writer of the work believes that modern institutions are in conflict with freedom and discipline, and sociology is nothing more than a description of modernity, freedom, and discipline. This means that modernity, in contrast to what initially showed itself as an individual and social freedom, took on a restrictive and disciplinary character. According to the author, the most important features of modernity are the passage from a free society to the disciplinary community and the rule of discipline for the formation of the political society. The dual nature of modernism and the domination of discipline and the restriction of individual and social freedoms at the foot of the rationality of modernism have eliminated the dream of achieving true freedom. The author’s suggestion is that the new collectivization and the formation of transitional congregations could be considered a way to get rid of the discipline of modernity.

Abstract This book has examined the historical course of Imam Khomeini’s struggles. In this review, the respected researcher used a simple and fluent pen that is comprehensible to all audiences of the book. However, it has omitted some of the events affecting the process of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. On the other hand, the title chosen for the book is a theoretical title using the concept of ‘discourse’, while the researcher has not addressed the theoretical issues of ‘discourse’ in this book, and his research method, is not a discourse method, and so he had better use a historical title for his work. In this critical article, in addition to presenting a summary of the mentioned work, methodological and content critiques of the book are also presented in different sections. The main criticism of this work is that the title of the book is an idea, while the content and method used in it are historical. Also, in explaining the Islamic Revolution from Imam Khomeini’s point of view, the theory of the Islamic Revolution sought by Imam Khomeini should have been studied through his political thought, which has been neglected.

Abstract Anna Zelkina in her book,  entitled “Islamic Movement at North  Caucasus”, the original name of which is “In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus”, printed in London, discusses the relation between ideas and reality, especially how a religion can challenge values, social system, and cultural laws of a society. She especially attends to the effects of a mystical, political, and historical phenomenon which acted when Russian troops attacked Caucasus about 300 years ago. In this article, we study different parts of her book and discuss her view of Sufism. We also debate contextual poverty and potency of the book and introduce all the seasons of her book. As far as the structure critique is concerned, we have discussed the translational problems. The methodology of the article is documentary especially with library sources. The conclusion shows that by political view to cultural identity of Caucasian Muslims, Sufism is a way for staying in front of despotic and irreligious rulers, like Russian ones.

Abstract This article is an analytical-critical review of “Preindustrial Communities, or An Anatomy of Pre-Modern World” by Patricia Crone. This study is mainly concerned with the theoretical aspect and the content of the book. Hence, the scientific method, theoretical approach, and historical data, and the content analysis of the book are evaluated, and its strengths, and shortcomings are identified. Accordingly, the critical phase of this study is presented in three sections relating to form, methodology, and content. The strong points of the book relate to the fact that the author retains powerful imagination, precise visualization, interpretive analysis of the preindustrial situation, and the ability to illustrate the cultural, political, social, and economic situations of pre-modern era with an accurate explanation of the positions of politics, government, culture, society, individuals, and religion.

Abstract In her Book, Modern Western Political Thought, Alireza Ismailzad has written a relatively comprehensive look at the developments in political thought in the West from the seventeenth century to the postmodern situation. The main premise in the critique of this book is based on the necessity of producing such works. Because of the existence of a large number of books in the field of Western Political Thought, including authorship and translation, the importance of innovation in the production of new works is doubled. Does this mean that there is basically a new need for rethinking in this area? And, does this book open a new window on Western Political Thought? Regardless of its strengths, the book has objections to chronological, thematic, thematic classification, how modern political thought was formed and evolved in the West, the choice of political thinkers, and the methodology of analyzing and interpreting the findings. For example, ignoring the theoretical foundations of the emergence of modern political thought such as the renaissance, not mentioning the theories of thinkers such as Luther, Machiavelli, and Hobbes, lack of sociological approach, and most importantly, the exclusion of the basic foundations of modern political thought, including politics, government, sovereignty, identity, nationality, etc. are the most prominent shortcomings of the book.

Abstract Networks of Outrage and Hope is one of the newest explanations about new social movements. Alain Touraine adopted the “new social movements” expression to describe the new forms of societal recourse for change in “post-industrial society” and made it the counterpart for “social movements” in “industrial society”. Touraine and his students, Castells and Melucci, analyzed the mentioned movements in a completely different social context, although they were not the same in their method. Other thinkers like Offe have focused on economic relations, and Englehart and Pakulski emphasized the cultural nature of these newly apparent movements. Castells in Networks of Outrage and Hope speaks of the network society in which there are the super network of power and super network of counter-power describing new social interactions. In the network society, movements have a hybrid characteristic and are divided into two spheres of places and spaces, which in turn make a new model of actions. Castells refers to this model to analyze the movements in the age of information and reconsider the events in Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Spain, and the U.S. by applying the mentioned model. The merit of Castells analysis is to introduce a well-coherent theoretical framework to explain the dynamics of movement, and the demerit is omitting the logic of social relations of production and consumption in the studied societies.

Abstract Revolutionary waves have always been a challenge to political systems. The culmination of these revolutions was in the twentieth century. In the 21^st century, revolutions have become a serious challenge to the political systems of the Middle East and North Africa. To explain why and how the revolution took place, the general theories and models of the revolution have been presented by political scientists. This is especially true for sociologists of the revolution. Hossein Bashirieh, a former associate professor at the University of Tehran with a specialization in political sociology, is trying to provide general analytical models in this regard. The book From Crisis to Collapse: An Inquiry into the Persistence or Collapse of Political Systems is written with this approach in mind, which will be reviewed and criticized in this study. In this regard, a general introduction about the work and the author will be presented in the introduction. Then, in the second topic, in two separate domains, the formal and content aspects of the work are examined, and finally, in the third topic, with a critical approach, the formal and content shortcomings of the book are mentioned. Moreover, the conclusion is the final part of this article.  

Abstract Giovanni Gentile is the most important philosopher of fascism. His influential book Origins and Doctrine of Fascism has a key role in the theoretical aspects of fascism. In other words, the significance of this book is providing a theoretical justification of fascism as an ideology. In the present article, by studying the different ideas raised by Gentile, I attempt to clarify how Gentile explains the internal logic of Italian fascism. I will try as much as possible to show how Gentile provides a theoretical support for fascism in Italy. Furthermore, the article has a critical review of this book in the last part.  

Abstract The main concern of this paper is to counter the ruling rationality of the humanities, which makes writings and classrooms of “Riskless and timely Foucault”. The rationality that has appropriated Foucault to reproduce the student-teacher relationship and write treatises and scientific books. According to this rationality, first, Foucault is Periodize, and then these periods are taught by a professor who, as a subject, is confronted with Foucault’s object and strictly observes the method of scientific references while truth Foucault (Truth does not mean the exact references of the subject to the object of Foucault’s works) is an untimely Foucault that develops an immanent life in the present. Therefore, in order to counter the academic Foucault, it is necessary to provide a reading of the Foucault that has no Periodization (One should not even understand the periods in relation to each other) because these Periodizations make it possible that Foucault can be conquered by the forces of academic rationality. As a result, Foucault’s method should be considered as a subjectification and continuous production of the untimely, whereby the subjugation of knowledge and relations of power are immanent subjects as an immanent life.

Abstract The main subject of this paper is Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha which is the essential text in the history of political thought and in a sense it is one of the most important sources of the controversial debates on politics in early modern England. We think that Patriarcha was one of the last systematic and coherent attempts to defend the "natural character of politics" and "divine right of kings to rule given by God alone. We try to show that Filmer’s point of view, in spite of its affinities with ancient political philosophers, it was essentially different because it is totally based on the revelation. Generally, we will attempt to understand Filmer’s text in the light of the rhetorical war between the defenders of the pre-modern political conception (emphasizing the naturalness of politics and denying the equity in political rights)  and the proponents of the new politics (emphasizing the artificial character of politics and the idea of ‘the individual possessed unconditional right by nature”.) Also, we cast light on the Persian translation of the Patriarcha and argue that the non-literalness of this rendering has led to some misunderstandings and erroneous equivalents.

Abstract This article reviews the book “Women in the Legislation Arena in Iran (1285-1395)” written by Manchoohr Nazari. This book is one of the rare studies on the topic of women suffrage, so it is of great importance. The main formal critique of this book has to do with plagiarism mainly because the author has not followed the rules in citations, and many of the references are either missing or faulty. Despite the reachability of the first-handed documents, in many cases, the secondary documents have been cited, and in some cases, the secondary references have been intentionally dismissed, and the author has cited them as the first-handed document directly. The main content-based shortcomings are as follow: inconsistency of title with content, the loss of the first- handed references such as documents, extended negotiations, periodicals, memories, formal reports, and simultaneous historiography, ignoring other events and variables leading to the suffrage of women in the span of 57 years, missing to analyze some events and delivering very hurried, a superficial and skimming overview of the many of influential events and opinions, as well as proposing some contradicted demonstrations. Considering all the formal and content-based aspects of this book, it could be concluded that the book, despite its pompous title, has failed to sketch out an accurate account of events leading to the suffrage of women.

Abstract This article is dedicated to the evaluation of Spinoza’s TTP. TTP is one of the most valuable treatises of the Enlightenment and represents the controversy of the old and the new in seventeenth-century Europe. The treatise includes the historical hermeneutics of Scripture and represents Spinoza’s republican political philosophy. The theological chapters of TTP, as well as its political chapters, contain topics that can be useful to the Iranian society involved in religious politics and political religion. Spinozist studies in Iran have not been significant compared to Anglo-Saxon, Jewish, and French traditions. These studies in the form of authorship and translation have become more serious from 2010 onward. The translation of TTP by Ali Ferdowsi in Iran is a good endeavor in itself, but there are also criticisms. For several reasons, Ferdowsi’s translation cannot be considered the end of the road: abstruse and unfamiliar language, unequal equivalents, misplacement of some sentences and words, and especially exclusive reliance on Silverthorne-Israel translation and lack of direct reference to Latin and other versions of this treatise can be enumerated as the pitfalls. 

Abstract “Nations Matter” is a passionate defense of nationalism in the age of cosmopolitanism. Craig Calhoun sees cosmopolitanism as a raw fantasy and nationalism as a realistic view. He called the formation of a world-democratic city-state a charming but unattainable ideal and claimed that now, in the first decade of the twenty-first century; the discourse of globalization is foggy more than it was in the 1990s. In this short article, fifteen critiques are presented to the author’s claim. The most important criticism is that the growth of extremist nationalism in the United States and Europe cannot be considered a defeat for the world because social change will generally take place in a sinusoidal, mixed-resistance path, and in the process of ups and downs. The rise of Trump, Brexit, and the like is part of a global resistance movement that is quite natural. The resistance will continue and may intensify, but on a larger scale, the general trend is still in favor of globalization, and nationalism is nothing but a decline.  

Abstract Nigel Warburton has noticed critical points in his work (Freedom: An Introduction with Readings, 2001) which are of paramount importance with regard to a deep visioning and conceptualization of freedom for the world, and today’s mankind. Regarding the significant role of freedom, the present article aims to review Warburton’s book with respect to policy and daily life. The main question of this research is the importance and necessity of debates on freedom, so this article tries to review his findings and critiques in that book. So, the writer of the article asks about new findings of Warburton and other writers whose works have been published in that work. According to this review, liberty (or freedom) is an ancient discussion and discusses issues concerning whose liberty, why liberty, how liberty, and the criteria of liberty in political philosophy. However, this an important achievement that Warburton has succeeded in bringing an abstract problem to politics and policymaking. Moreover, he, such as other analytic political philosophers, explains “liberty” in daily life. He has attached excellent studies written by well-known theoreticians on freedom. All of them have separated negative freedom from positive, and this separation is problematic in our research.

Abstract Alienation has been one of the most important philosophical and social concepts since Hegel’s time, which has been somewhat diminished in recent times. Based on a philosophical and social approach, Rahel Jaeggi in her book takes back the history of alienation to Rousseau’s thought and criticizes his and others’ essentialist approach, arguing that alienation should be surveyed in the context of concrete social relations. In this view, alienation appears when the human relationship with others, including the roles who have taken on, are disrupted, or as Jaeggi stated, they are placed in the “Relation of Relationlessness”. It is clear that man does not have a separate and independent nature from society and its relations and roles until that can be used as a criterion for evaluating the situation of human alienation. Therefore, although social roles and collective relations sometimes lead to human alienation, at the same time, social interactions offer capacities and possibilities for human liberation, and therefore escapement from alienation should not be sought outside the society and its relations.

Abstract The manner of reading and interpreting historical texts is one of the central pillars of the methodology and history of thought. The main question in this field is how to study and understand the concepts and meanings of the thinkers in the study of the history of thought? Quentin Skinner is one of the founders of the Cambridge School of History and Political Thought, whose work is of philosophical importance, presenting new and influential ideas. Skinner considers the question of how different and conflicting perspectives are to be adapted, which can be still a central issue in contemporary political thought. He has attempted to use the traditional methods of historical research with an intentional approach, to draw attention to their differences, to reconstitute their beliefs, and to be as aware of the processes of the formation of problems and events as possible, to understand the way things are going. He hopes that by examining and evaluating the history of competing theories, he will be able to play a part in these widespread conflicts, regardless of his historical interest. This article will attempt to introduce and review the first volume of the book Visions of Politics: On Methodology. The importance of the critical reading of this series of articles in this book is that it now reflects his intellectual transformation as classical writings.

Abstract The book “Religion and Theory of International Relations: Theory and Practice” is a collection of articles compiled and translated into Persian by Asgar Ghahramanpour Bonab from scattered articles and journals by Daniel Filpat and several other researchers of international relations. By compiling these articles, the translator has attempted to address the important role of religion in shaping international relations in the Westphalian period and by evaluating its position among various mainstream and minor theories of international relations such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism, he has explored the function of different world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism, both in inciting civil strife and converging, and in uniting and strengthening the world peace. Given the importance of familiarity with different types of religions, as well as their historical role in the formation of societies and their developments, especially in the contemporary period, this article examines and evaluates this book and tries to recommend some formal as well as content revisions on translation, equivalence, and references. The authors of the articles, as well as the translator, seem to have neglected to observe the prevailing modern situation of the separation of religion from politics and the marginalized religion in contemporary international relations.

Abstract The under review book of Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow, is the second part of the trilogy of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century were all written by Yuval Noah Harari. In this book, the writer has first reviewed the history behind the formation of the human mindset from Paleolithic to the renaissance with particular emphasis on the scientific revolution and appearance of the humanism paradigm and its subdivisions (liberalism, socialism, and fascism). Doing so, he concluded that the invention of the internet of everything and using more sophisticated computer-generated algorithms by Google and Facebook (Dataism) would eventually put humans aside forever. The writers of this critique compared the Farsi translation with the English one and realized that some parts of the Farsi version suffer from improper translation, and some other parts have been deleted during the translation. In addition to that, it is probable that human societies might escape from the illustrated dark future by Harari. Learning from past events, and more importantly, using our global consciousness, which we possess more than ever, might change the inevitable future.