Tag: secularization

The US-Israel War Against Iran and Iran’s Internal Conflicts

Keynote Address — 2026 South Carolina Political Science Association Annual Conference: This illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust war must end immediately — with a non-aggression agreement that includes adequate guarantees against any renewed aggression toward Iran. Iranians stand firmly opposed to religious despotism, yet simultaneously support their Army in defending their homeland against foreign aggression. Popular solidarity in defense of the nation — including a broad willingness to defer domestic opposition to the Islamic Republic — has increased markedly. Ultimately, this military aggression has weakened and set back Iran’s freedom-seeking, democracy-demanding movement.

Religion and Politics In Post-Revolutionary Iran

This course will narrate a fair and balanced critical and historical analysis, and is organized into five thematic sections: a brief overview of the relationship between religion and politics in Iran, an intellectual history of the Islamic Republic, examining the concept of the “sacred as secular” and exploring the dynamics of secularization within a theocratic system, the governance in the name of Islam, focusing on theology and theocratic rule in the Islamic Republic, and the revolt against theocracy: the Mahsa Movement and the feminist uprising against theocracy in Iran.

Three Big Questions on Secularism

The first question arises when the non-Christians or non-Western societies want to apply secularization in the processes of their modernization: ‘what is the precise meaning of secularization? or what are its major connotations?’ Is non-secular modernization possible, without a decline in religious beliefs and practices, without privatization of religion, and even without separation of church and state? Is secularism an end in itself, or is it a means to some other end? Which kind of religion do humans need? By whom are the categories of religion and the secular defined?