Spektrum Iran

Abstract Human dignity constitutes one of the foundational principles of Islamic thought and provides a normative framework for understanding humanitarian principles during armed conflict. Although international humanitarian law has received extensive scholarly attention, the relationship between human dignity and humanitarian norms within the Islamic intellectual tradition has not been systematically examined. This study investigates the conceptual foundations of human dignity, identifies the principal humanitarian norms reflected in Islamic sources, and analyzes the relationship between these two concepts. Employing qualitative content analysis and historical analysis, this study draws upon the Qur'an, the Prophetic Sunnah, the Nahj al-Balaghah, and authenticated historical sources to examine both the normative and historical dimensions of humanitarian conduct in Islam. Concepts and analytical categories were inductively derived from the texts and subsequently used to explain broader conceptual relationships. The findings demonstrate that human dignity is understood in Islam as an inherent and universal attribute shared by all human beings, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation. This conception serves as the normative basis for humanitarian principles governing armed conflict. Accordingly, prioritizing peaceful settlement, refraining from initiating hostilities, protecting civilians, respecting the wounded, prisoners of war, and those hors de combat, prohibiting treachery and mutilation, and maintaining negotiations throughout hostilities emerge not merely as ethical recommendations but as practical manifestations of the principle of human dignity. The study further argues that these principles apply equally to both domestic and international armed conflicts and are not confined to relations among Muslims. The study concludes that human dignity functions as the philosophical and normative foundation of humanitarian law in Islam and offers a valuable basis for constructive dialogue between the Islamic legal tradition and contemporary international humanitarian law.

Abstract After a brief introduction on Meister Eckhart's reception of Avicenna, Meister Eckhart's metaphysics of being is examined, clearly demonstrating Avicenna's influence. First, the significance of his thesis "Being is God" is explained, followed by "Being as the name of God" and "Necessary Being as the name of God." Subsequently, "Being" and the biblical name of God "I am that I am" and its interpretation by Meister Eckhart under Avicenna’s influence are examined in four steps. Finally, it is pointed out that Meister Eckhart's reception of Avicenna occurred solely on the level of metaphysics.

Abstract Iranian architecture has historically evolved in close association with spirituality. This relationship is reflected not only in its spatial and physical organization but also in its philosophical and theoretical foundations. Drawing upon Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Philosophy and the Fourfold Model of Cognition, this study investigates the spiritual dimensions of Iranian architecture. This qualitative study adopts a logical–interpretive approach based on Islamic-Iranian philosophical sources and selected examples of traditional Iranian architecture. The theoretical framework is grounded in Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Philosophy, which is founded upon the principles of the Primacy of Existence, the Gradation of Existence, and Substantial Motion. From this perspective, architecture is understood not merely as a physical artifact but as an existential phenomenon capable of manifesting these philosophical principles. The Fourfold Model of Cognition, rooted in Iranian philosophical thought and the doctrine of the apparent (ẓāhir) and the hidden (bāṭin), provides an analytical framework for understanding the relationship between architecture and wisdom. The model consists of four interconnected levels—concepts (meanings), foundations (principles), patterns (design frameworks and methods), and exemplars (cases and applications)—through which the reciprocal movement from meaning to matter (the hidden to the apparent) and vice versa is examined. Based on theoretical analysis and field observations of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, the findings demonstrate that, through the principles of Transcendent Philosophy, Iranian architecture extends beyond aesthetic and functional considerations to provide a mystical and ontological experience of space. This perspective offers an understanding that transcends form and function, connecting architecture with spiritual and intuitive dimensions of human experience. The findings suggest that the philosophical foundations of Mulla Sadra’s Transcendent Philosophy can provide a theoretical basis for revitalizing the transcendent dimensions of contemporary architecture. In this regard, the Fourfold Model of Cognition offers a valuable methodological framework for interpreting and designing architectural spaces through a spiritual perspective.

Abstract This paper examines the role of Swedish engineering firms in Iran’s architectural modernization during the First Pahlavi era, foregrounding infrastructure as a critical yet underexplored instrument of state formation, national integration, and geopolitical self-assertion. While the contributions of prominent European engineering firms to Pahlavi modernization have long been recognized, the role of Scandinavian companies has received little scholarly attention. Addressing this lacuna, the study investigates the technical, conceptual, and cultural dimensions of Swedish engagement in Iran, with particular reference to the Ahvaz White Bridge and the Ghazian–Mian Poshteh Bridge. Adopting a descriptive–analytical methodology and drawing on archival materials, historical documentation, architectural records, and field investigations, the research traces how Scandinavians facilitated the transfer of modernist ideas, reconfigured spatial orders, and reshaped Iran’s building culture. The findings suggest that Swedish firms performed a role far exceeding that of contractors or technical service providers. Their projects introduced advanced materials, including reinforced concrete and steel, together with movable bridge technologies previously unknown in Iran, while simultaneously embodying the broader discourse of Pahlavi modernisation. These structures emerged not only as feats of engineering, but also as visible symbols of state authority and of Iran’s aspiration to reposition itself within global modernity. Their deliberate siting in strategically sensitive regions further underscores their geopolitical significance and their function as instruments of territorial integration. Beyond their technical contribution, Swedish companies acted as cultural agents and conduits for international architectural models, participating in a form of “architectural diplomacy” that facilitated the social reception of new architectural vocabularies, and thereby helped legitimise modernist aesthetics. By bringing these issues into focus, this study contributes to scholarship on transnational architectural history, technology transfer, and the geopolitics of infrastructure. It demonstrates how peripheral European actors shaped non-Western trajectories of modernisation and how the built environment was instrumentalised in state-building projects.

Abstract Migration is not merely geographical relocation but a multi-layered process of redefining identity and rebuilding social relations. This theoretical article examines the sociological tendency toward intense cultural assimilation in parts of the Iranian diaspora. The objective is to move beyond reductionist and normative explanations and present a multi-level explanatory model for understanding this phenomenon. This research is a theoretical article (Conceptual Paper) organized through a systematic literature review and conceptual analysis. Classical and contemporary works related to the sociology of migration, diaspora studies, theories of cultural adaptation, status theory, symbolic capital, and media were critically examined. Key concepts were extracted and organized within three analytical levels: pre-migration contextual factors, post-migration mediating mechanisms, and status and identity consequences. The findings demonstrate that intense cultural assimilation cannot be reduced merely to cultural self-loss or individual preferences. Instead, it results from the interaction of historical, cultural, media, and status-related factors. Pre-migration cultural deposits, transnational media representations, structural ruptures, status pressures in the host society, and the effort to accumulate symbolic capital in transnational social fields interact within a causal-interactive structure. This pattern represents one of several possible cultural adaptation strategies among the Iranian diaspora. Intense cultural assimilation is not a sign of absolute passivity or lack of agency but rather a positionally rational strategy for gaining positive distinction and accumulating symbolic capital in transnational social fields. Alongside this pattern, hybrid, multi-layered, and transnational identities are also observable among different sections of the Iranian diaspora. Understanding this phenomenon requires simultaneous attention to social structures, lived experiences, and the status calculations of social actors.

Abstract Amid intensifying global environmental crises, growing scholarly attention has turned to the role of religion in shaping pro-environmental behavior. This study compares the influence of Islamic and Christian teachings on environmental behavior among Muslims in Iran (N = 442) and Christians in Germany (N = 58), using a researcher-designed questionnaire and nonparametric statistical methods, including direct cross-national comparison of key associations. Among Iranian Muslims, religiosity and religious socialization were positively associated with pro-environmental behavior and a sense of environmental responsibility, underscoring the ethical potential of Islamic concepts such as khilafah (stewardship), the sacredness of creation, and moral responsibility toward nature. However, religiosity was negatively related to general environmental awareness and showed no significant association with low-consumption practices or beliefs about the harms of consumerism. Moreover, religious institutions and leaders in Iran were perceived as playing a limited role in environmental engagement. Among Christians in Germany, institutional religiosity showed no significant relationship with environmental behavior, awareness, or responsibility, while pro-environmental behavior was shaped primarily by secular norms, environmental education, and civic culture. Direct cross-national comparisons confirmed that the association between religiosity and both environmental behavior and religious awareness was significantly stronger in Iran than in Germany, whereas the relationship between environmental behavior and religious socialization was comparably strong in both countries.

The findings demonstrate that religion’s influence on environmental behavior is context-dependent and mediated by cultural, institutional, and social conditions. In Iran, religion remains closely connected to collective identity and moral socialization, while in Germany environmental values are largely embedded in secular institutions and civic culture. The study concludes that religious traditions can contribute to sustainability when their ethical resources are effectively connected with contemporary ecological knowledge and social practices.

Abstract Karin Knorr Cetina developed the concept of postsocial relations to explain how epistemic objects assume increasingly central roles in organizing knowledge, expertise, and social interaction within late modern scientific and technological environments. While this framework has primarily been applied to contemporary settings, its broader historical applicability remains largely unexplored. This article investigates whether medieval Persian medicine may offer a historically distinct case of object-centered epistemic relations that is analytically comparable to the relational dynamics described in postsocial theory. Focusing on Persian medicine between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, the study employs a historical-conceptual methodology grounded in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Drawing upon secondary historical scholarship, the analysis examines manuscripts, hospitals, pharmaceutical substances, medical instruments, and pedagogical practices as material components of an epistemic culture. These historical materials were selected according to their documented roles in organizing medical knowledge, professional authority, and institutional practice, and are interpreted through the analytical concepts of epistemic objects and object-centered relationality. The findings indicate that these material entities functioned as dynamic and open-ended centers of epistemic engagement, structuring learning, clinical practice, and scholarly communities in ways that exhibit important structural similarities to the characteristics Knorr Cetina associates with epistemic objects. Rather than arguing that medieval Persian medicine constituted a postsocial society in the strict historical sense, the article proposes that it developed historically specific object-centered relational configurations that expand the temporal and geographical horizon within which postsocial theory may be productively interpreted. By bringing medieval Persian medicine into dialogue with contemporary STS, the study contributes both to the globalization of Science and Technology Studies and to the historiography of medicine, demonstrating how non-Western historical epistemic cultures can serve not only as empirical illustrations of sociological concepts but also as productive sites for their critical refinement.

Abstract The 1962 land reform was implemented with specific goals that now have gaps relative to the current results. In fact, land reforms were accompanied by initial promises such as equal land distribution, social justice, increased agricultural productivity, and improved villagers' livelihoods. However, after several decades, this policy has not only not achieved its goals in some cases, but has also encountered unintended consequences. By comparing the initial goals and explaining the current results, this article seeks to answer the question of under what factors and how the 1962 land reform has reached the current situation. In response to the main question and in the form of a hypothesis, it can be noted that; land reforms were carried out for development, but the incomplete implementation based on more political goals was reinforced in the following decade with the increase in oil revenues, and then, due to war conditions and continued sanctions, the conflict of interests of self-reinforcing institutions reached a locking stage, which made any change difficult. The research findings in the form of the "path dependency" theory showed that the choice of a transformational decision in the past was influenced by factors such as; Dependence on oil revenues, wrong policies, and conflict of interest among interest groups gradually strengthened and continued in the following decades due to war, imposed conditions, and fear of costs, which have led to a lock-in and currently made it difficult to change and return to the path. The research approach is analytical-descriptive, based on data from library sources and documents.

Abstract Abstract
The expansion of social media, particularly Instagram, has played a significant role in transforming the ways cultural rituals are experienced and represented in contemporary Iran. This study aims to elucidate the role of Instagram in the transformation of traditional rituals and to examine the impact of this platform’s media logic on the form, meaning, and modes of enactment of cultural occasions. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach, and its data were collected through semi-structured interviews with active Instagram users who participated in this research. Purposive sampling was employed, and data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached, which was ultimately achieved after 15 interviews. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis based on the Braun and Clarke approach. The findings indicate that Instagram, as an active cultural intermediary, has contributed to the mediatization of rituals, the aestheticization of ceremonial practices, shifts in patterns of social participation, the individualization of ritual experience, transformations in symbolic meanings, and the strengthening of influencers’ roles in redefining the ways rituals are performed. The results suggest that traditional rituals have moved beyond exclusively place-bound and collective frameworks and, within the context of the network society, have been transformed into visual, performative, and to some extent individualized experiences. In this process, rituals are not merely represented but are also reconfigured through interaction with Instagram’s image-driven logic. Based on the findings, a form of “digital rituality” has emerged within the context of contemporary Iranian culture, in which traditional elements have become intertwined with new media mechanisms. This study demonstrates that understanding cultural transformations and the redefinition of identity in contemporary Iranian society is not possible without considering the role of digital platforms.

Abstract Large language models increasingly translate, summarize, and explain cultural traditions they have not inherited, raising a question more fundamental than accuracy: can a machine preserve a civilization’s meanings without absorbing them into dominant semantic regimes? This study introduces semantic sovereignty as a critical framework for auditing how large language models mediate Persianate and Shi‘i meaning across languages. Rather than treating translation quality as a matter of lexical equivalence, the study asks whether culturally dense concepts remain intelligible within their own poetic, theological, and historical horizons when processed by multilingual AI systems. Using a cross-lingual mixed-method design, it examines model outputs across four high-pressure domains: Rumi’s mystical semantics, Hafez’s lyric ambiguity, Ferdowsi’s epic-political vocabulary, and Shi‘i hermeneutic concepts such as taʾwīl, velāyat, ijtihād, and ʿismah. The analysis combines comparative prompting, translation-chain testing, expert annotation, and qualitative coding of semantic displacement. Findings show that LLMs often generate fluent and plausible responses while weakening the interpretive structures that make these texts meaningful. Rumi is frequently psychologized into global spirituality; Hafez is over-clarified through premature closure of ambiguity; Ferdowsi is depoliticized into ethical leadership; and Shi‘i concepts are flattened into generic religious vocabulary. Expert-context prompting improves semantic preservation by supplying models with interpretive constraints, yet it does not eliminate displacement. The study therefore argues that multilingual AI must be evaluated not only for linguistic performance, benchmark accuracy, or cultural bias, but for hermeneutic accountability: its capacity to preserve metaphor, doctrine, ambiguity, register, authority, and civilizational memory. By positioning Persianate meaning as a test case for AI evaluation, the article contributes to debates on digital humanities, translation studies, cultural sovereignty, and responsible artificial intelligence in an increasingly automated interpretive world. It also suggests that future audits should involve domain experts, historically grounded corpora, and evaluation criteria sensitive to local traditions of interpretation and authority too.

Abstract Abstract
The emergence of artificial intelligence as a semi-autonomous agent has challenged the classical paradigms of knowledge production in the humanities. Employing a comparative-analytical approach and qualitative methodology, this study addresses the central question: How are the legal and ethical components of responsibility for works produced with AI participation redefined within the frameworks of Imami jurisprudence and the German legal system? Data were collected through the study of authoritative jurisprudential sources, German codified laws, and scholarly articles, and analyzed using inductive reasoning. The findings reveal that the shift from a purely instrumental paradigm to one recognizing AI's "relative agency" has intensified three structural crises: the crisis of attribution (ambiguity regarding authorship and ownership); the crisis of originality (erosion of human creativity and scientific credibility); and the crisis of accountability (conflict in determining final responsibility). In response, this research proposes the innovative "Proportional Responsibility" model as an interdisciplinary solution. This model distributes ethical and legal responsibility equitably among three key actors: the researcher (active supervision and final verification of content); the developer (transparency regarding system limitations and potential errors); and academic institutions (formulating clear standards and implementing oversight mechanisms). By integrating foundational jurisprudential principles from Imami jurisprudence—such as the rules of lā ḍarar, ḍamān, and tasbīb—with the advanced doctrines of German civil liability, particularly § 280 BGB and producer liability principles, the model establishes a coherent framework designed to preserve scientific integrity in humanities research in the age of artificial intelligence.
 Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Imami Jurisprudence; German Law; Algorithm and Text; Proportional Responsibility

Abstract Objective: In Iran, a country with an ancient civilization, a rich cultural heritage rooted in Iranian-Islamic values, and a collectivist social structure, this issue takes on added complexity and significance. The primary aim of this research is to analyze the process of algorithmic reconstruction of Iranian identity in the age of AI-IoT convergence and to outline plausible alternative future scenarios. The central research question is: How are intelligent algorithms and connected objects redefining the communicative cultural norms and identity of Iranians, and in what direction are they steering these transformations?
Method: This study was conducted using a qualitative approach and futures studies methodology. In the first step, through environmental scanning techniques, the cultural biases embedded in the algorithms of popular Iranian platforms—including Snapp, Divar, and Rubika—were systematically extracted and analyzed. In the next step, using Causal Layered Analysis and the Critical Uncertainty Matrix, probable scenarios for the horizon of 1420 (2041 CE) were developed.
Findings: Three distinct scenarios were identified: 1) "Silent Assimilation"—characterized by the accelerated algorithmic redefinition of norms without effective societal resistance; 2) "Indigenous Resilience"—involving the production of algorithms aligned with Iranian-Islamic values and indigenous cultural priorities; and 3) "Schizophrenic Ambivalence"—referring to a state in which individuals simultaneously exist within two conflicting value systems, leading to a profound identity crisis. Current evidence and observable trends indicate that Iranian society is moving predominantly toward the third scenario.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that the transition from "content-centric governance" to "intelligent algorithmic governance" is an inevitable and urgent necessity. Strategic investment in the development of indigenous ethical AI and the comprehensive promotion of critical algorithmic literacy are proposed as the most key policy strategies for managing this critical transition.

Abstract Political metaphors are not merely rhetorical devices but cognitive instruments that shape perception, structure judgment, and guide collective action. Among them, medical–political metaphors are particularly influential, as they draw on culturally authoritative notions of health, disease, diagnosis, and treatment to interpret political realities. This article offers a philosophical analysis of the epistemic, ethical, and socio-political implications of such metaphors. Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, discourse ethics, and theories of epistemic injustice, it argues that medicalized political language functions not only descriptively but also as a mechanism that reorganizes political understanding through biologically grounded schemas.

The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, it reconstructs the conceptual structure of five recurrent medical–political metaphors, showing how political actors, institutions, and conflicts are mapped onto medical categories such as pathology, infection, surgery, and cancer. Second, it examines their epistemic consequences, arguing that these metaphors simplify political phenomena, produce category mistakes, obscure agency and structural causality, narrow interpretive possibilities, encourage affective shortcuts in reasoning, and improperly transfer the authority of scientific discourse into domains of normative and political contestation. Third, it explores their ethical and political consequences, showing how they may contribute to dehumanization, weaken mutual recognition, enable epistemic injustice, legitimize exclusionary practices, and reshape political culture by normalizing antagonistic identities and exceptional forms of governance.

The article concludes that medical–political metaphors are not neutral tools of political communication. By framing political disagreement as pathology, they reshape the epistemic and moral conditions under which democratic judgment, public deliberation, and political pluralism operate. Their significance lies not only in the meanings they convey but also in the forms of political reality they render intelligible and governable. A critical examination of these metaphors is therefore essential for understanding the relationship between language, power, and democratic life.