Background: Dignified care is one of the main objectives of holistic care. Furthermore, paying attention to dignity as one of the fundamental rights of patients is extremely important. However, in many cases, the dignity of hospitalized patients is not considered. Dignity is an abstract concept, and comprehensive studies of the dignity of Iranian patients hospitalized in general hospital settings are limited. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the concept of dignity from the perspective of patients hospitalized in (...) general hospital settings in Iran. Research design: This study takes a qualitative approach. Data were gathered using individual, semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was the method used to analyse and interpret the data. The criteria suggested by Guba and Lincoln were used ensure the trustworthiness of the study. Participants and research context: A total of 14 hospitalized patients in general hospital settings in Shiraz participated in this study. Ethical considerations: The Research Ethics Committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences approved the protocol of the study and the ethical principles were followed throughout. Findings: The findings of this study revealed four main themes – ‘respectful atmosphere’, ‘patient privacy’, ‘preservation of authority’ and ‘receiving attention’ – and 10 categories. Discussion: Patients need to be hospitalized in a respectable environment in which their privacy is preserved and paid attention, providing them with sufficient authority in terms of medical decisions and their life-related issues. The dignity of hospitalized patients will be preserved under these conditions. Conclusion: Patients hospitalized in general hospital settings need to retain their dignity. This can contribute to the optimal therapeutic outcomes for them. Therefore, it is suggested that a cultural, professional and institutional background, in which all components of the patient’s dignity are protected and emphasized, should be provided. (shrink)

The social impact of robotics applied to domains such as education, religion, nursing, and therapy across the world depends on the level of technology as well as the culture in which it is used. By studying how robots are used in Iran, a technologically-savvy country with a long history and a rich culture, we explore their possible impact on interrelated areas of religious and ethical features in education in an Islamic society. To accomplish this task, a preliminary exploratory study was (...) conducted using two social robots as teaching assistants in Islamic religion classes for 42 elementary students. More than 90% of the participants in the study absolutely preferred the robot-assisted religion class over one taught by a human. Building on the results from the students’ viewpoints and exam scores, the acceptability and potential of using social robots in the education of Islamic religious concepts in Iran are further discussed in this paper. (shrink)

“Dance” has been associated with many psychophysiological and medical health effects. However, varying definitions of what constitute “dance” have led to a rather heterogenous body of evidence about such potential effects, leaving the picture piecemeal at best. It remains unclear what exact parameters may be driving positive effects. We believe that this heterogeneity of evidence is partly due to a lack of a clear definition of dance for such empirical purposes. A differentiation is needed between (a) the effects on the (...) individual when the activity of “dancing” is enjoyedas a dancerwithindifferent dance domains(e.g.,professional/”high-art”type of dance,eroticdance,religiousdance,clubdancing,Dance Movement Therapy(DMT), and what is commonly known ashobby, recreationalorsocialdance), and (b) the effects on the individual within these different domains, as a dancer of thedifferent dance styles(solo dance, partnering dance, group dance; and all the different styles within these). Another separate category of dance engagement is, not as a dancer, but as a spectator of all of the above. “Watching dance” as part of an audience has its own set of psychophysiological and neurocognitive effects on the individual, and depends on the context where dance is witnessed. With the help of dance professionals, we first outline some different dance domains and dance styles, and outline aspects that differentiate them, and that may, therefore, cause differential empirical findings when compared regardless (e.g., amount of interpersonal contact, physical exertion, context, cognitive demand, type of movements, complexity of technique and ratio of choreography/improvisation). Then, we outline commonalities between all dance styles. We identify six basic components that are part of any dance practice, as part of a continuum, and review and discuss available research for each of them concerning the possible health and wellbeing effects of each of these components, and how they may relate to the psychophysiological and health effects that are reported for “dancing”: (1) rhythm and music, (2) sociality, (3) technique and fitness, (4) connection and connectedness (self-intimation), (5) flow and mindfulness, (6) aesthetic emotions and imagination. Future research efforts might take into account the important differences between types of dance activities, as well as the six components, for a more targeted assessment of how “dancing” affects the human body. (shrink)

Individuals who are overweight or obese encounter frequent weight-related stigma experiences, which are associated with negative health outcomes. In this regard, the Brief Coping Responses Inventory was developed as a measure of core coping responses to weight stigma, with 10 items loading on two subscales of reappraisal and Disengagement coping. The current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Persian BCRI with 253 Iranian school-attending youth who had BMI score over 30. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis (...) supported the originally proposed two-factor model, which yielded acceptable internal consistency based on various reliability measures such as Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and demonstrated the expected convergent and divergent associations with external correlates of interest. This study was also the first one worldwide to examine and report that the originally proposed two-factor model of the BCRI is invariant across gender groups, which allows for examining mean differences in BCRI scores across gender groups. Overall, our results indicated that the BCRI is a valid and reliable measure with a solid factor structure, which could be used to examine the coping reactions to weigh related stigma experiences among youth samples in Iran. Our results may encourage future studies on the psychometrics of the BCRI with other Iranian samples. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays by Dr. Seyed Javad Miri as he attempts to expand the sociological canon by exploring the works of Dr. Ali Shariati, an Iranian sociologist.

Ali Shariati has been called by many the 'ideologue of the Iranian Revolution'. An inspiration to many of the revolutionary generation, Shariati's combination of Islamic political thought and Left-leaning ideology continues to influence both in Iran and across the wider Muslim world. In this book, Siavash Saffari examines Shariati's long-standing legacy, and how new readings of his works by contemporary 'neo-Shariatis' have contributed to a deconstruction of the false binaries of Islam/modernity, Islam/West, and East/West. Saffari argues that (...) through their critique of Eurocentric metanarratives on the one hand, and the essentialist conceptions of Islam on the other, Shariati and neo-Shariatis have carved out a new space in Islamic thought beyond the traps of Orientalism and Occidentalism. This unique perspective will hold great appeal to researchers of the politics and intellectual thought of post-revolutionary Iran and the greater Middle East. (shrink)

This essay engages with Ali Shariati’s lecture “Some of the Vanguard of the Return to Self in the Third World” to explore his conception of the “Third World” as a cultural, psychic, and politico-economic project of which Iran would be an integral part, and his relationship to the intellectual contributions of Frantz Fanon, whose translation and critical reception proved to be of considerable importance to the ideological development of a popular-nationalist and avowedly religious section of Iran’s anti-Pahlavi opposition during (...) the 1960s and 1970s. The essay explores several elements of Shariati’s anti-capitalism in the context of his advocacy of a Third World politico-economic bloc and some of the potential difficulties, tensions, and contradictions this vision would, and ultimately, did encounter. Finally, the essay concludes by examining how Shariati’s prescriptions for breaking the chains of “dependency” might have been further developed and complicated, given the immense obstacles the promise of Third World solidarity has historically faced. (shrink)

Islamic sociologist Ali Shariati is a leading figure of the reconstruction of religious thought in the Islamic world known especially for his anti-capitalist stance and leftist reading of Islamic history. In the philosophy of history that he developed, he classified religions as religions of tawheed and religions of shirk. According to this new reading of history, the main struggle is not between religion and secularism but between religions of tawheed and of sheerk. The issue of the gaining and the (...) distribution of the property is central to his classification. Shariati argued that followers of tawheed and of sheerk can be found in all religions including Islam. To support his argument Shariati explored how capitalistic understanding of Islam has been developed and legalised while anti-capitalist messages and orders of Islam were marginalised and illegalised just after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. He analysed the rivalry between his close companions over the content of a proper Islamic economic order and how this rivalry gave way to two contradicting understanding of Islam, marks of which can be seen today in the contemporary Muslim world. He coined the term ‘abluted capitalism’ to define the economic policies of Muslim sovereigns to make Islam compatible with capitalist economic principles. (shrink)

This introduction frames the special issue titled “Mystical Solidarities: Ali Shariati and the Act of Translation.” Drawing from insights across the collection’s essays, it foregrounds a notion of translation as a transformative act, anchored in Shariati’s mystical ontology, that fosters and sustains anticolonial solidarities. To illustrate, we explore differences and affinities between Shariati and Frantz Fanon with regard to truth-telling, translation, alienation, and subjectivity. The comparison reveals a generative distinction in Shariati’s thought between cultural and existential (...) alienation, “translated intellectuals” and the act of translation. The distinction creates grounds for a vision of anticolonial solidarity responsive to circumstances in postrevolutionary Iran, a vision that reaches beyond the postcolonial state. (shrink)

This article reevaluates the Iranian polymath Ali Shariati’s most controversial lectures. Scholarly consensus reads 1969’s Ummat va Imāmat as derivative, comprising an imitation of Sukarno’s guided democracy and hence an apology for postcolonial authoritarian rule. Shariati’s rhetorical performance suggests otherwise. The lectures address a postcolonial iteration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox of founding—a call for self-determination alongside the external intervention needed to prepare for it in the wake of moral dispositions accrued during colonization. Shariati proposes to resolve the (...) problem of enduring colonial domination by citing a fabricated French professor, a foreigner, as an authoritative source. He practices a noble lie, believable because it draws from colonized sensibilities but laden with hints encouraging audiences to see past it. If audiences develop the requisite ability to decipher the lie, Shariati wagers, they at once develop the autonomy implied by self-determination. On these grounds, Shariati theorizes the paradox of politics as decolonization. (shrink)

Though Ali Shariati is well-known as the “ideologue” of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, this essay considers Shariati conversely as a student of revolution. It begins by posing a distinction between the apprentice and the autodidact through reference to Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan and introduces a third term, the collaborator, that is crucial to Shariati’s account of counter-pedagogy. The essay then reconstructs Shariati’s critique of the pedagogical state. There, he recalls resisting interpellation by learning from (...) other pasts, refusing instruction, and learning from others. Finally, I show changes in how Shariati conceptualized self-transformation, from an autodidactic process of soul-searching to a collaborative process that gives soul to a collective. On becoming immersed in the sounds of his compatriots grieving the martyrs of struggle, Shariati attests to being a student of history: the curriculum of a people becoming, the history of struggle, and its instructors, those who modeled it, pivoted around a refusal to be instructed. Overall, this essay develops an account of media environments as informal pedagogical spaces. (shrink)

At the time of his premature death at the age of forty-three, the written output of Ali Shariati was remarkable. He wrote in a variety of styles and forms and read extensively from vastly distinct literary traditions. While in recent years, Anglophone scholarship on his work has situated him rightfully among critical anticolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, his contribution to a worldly reimagining of comparative literature has not received the same attention. This essay offers a framing of his (...) work within the field of comparative literature, with a particular focus on his adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. By studying his mode of engagement with this canonical text, this essay provides an introductory analysis to the comparative literary practice of a towering Iranian intellectual. It can also serve as a model for a comparative literature practicum that privileges the work of a writer from the Global South. (shrink)

Ali Shariati is typically understood as a theorist of “political Islam.” Yet his theological innovations within what is called “mystical thought” are also worthy of attention. Shariati does not consider mystical thought as an escapist, transcendent paradigm, but as a means to interpret and navigate the socio-political world. Of particular relevance to Shariati is an idea ubiquitous across Islamic mysticism: the transformation of the self. Within Islamic mysticism, there are various iterations of the idea that to become (...) closer to God, one must enact a radical transfiguration of the self, one that occurs simultaneously at the divine and existential registers. For Shariati, this transformation of the self is tied not only to one’s relationship with God, but also to the desire to alter the social realm. This is an ethos that, for Shariati, should infiltrate all aspects of life, material and immaterial, cerebral and social. If one wishes to overturn the status quo, one must cultivate not only a revolutionary subjectivity but a mystically-oriented subjectivity as well, or one that is characterized by constant change and growth. (shrink)

Critical investigations of Ali Shariati reveal a body of work formed upon a contradictory synthesis of Islamic and modern Western thought. This combination reflects the historical milieu to which Shariati belonged, interpretation of which requires mapping his work onto iterations of global thought that respond to the conditions of modernity. The present inquiry examines Shariati’s understanding of art as an idealistic effort to appease human alienation vis-à-vis the question of human existence, which, I argue, elucidates his interpretations (...) of Islamic and Western terrains of modern thought. (shrink)

Known as a revolutionary ideologue and a religious reformer, Ali Shariati’s activities as a translator have not garnered substantial scholarly attention. We reconstruct a history of Shariati’s translations, situating these endeavors at the center of his intellectual project. Shariati’s thought itself, we show, is a form of translation in the service of decolonization. This history reveals a nascent theory of decolonization as open-ended and indeterminate. We advance this claim by staging a conversation between Shariati’s reflections on (...) decolonization and Morad Farhadpour’s evolving concept of thought/translation, a dissident theory of translation influential in contemporary Iran that bears resemblance to Shariati’s performative works. More than an abstruse debate in Iranian intellectual history, these continuities raise questions of pressing concern for postcolonial states, in particular the specificity of local situations as they relate to ongoing global hierarchies. (shrink)