While Tavakolian's work is featured in many Western publications, it is not always intended for a Western audience. In her speech to the seventh biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, she used an old family photo to demonstrate how photography helps to build collective memory. Believing this framework to be largely missing in her…

The Islamic Republic of Iran is obliged to respect the right to education under international human rights law and has made legal commitments to conform to the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Drawing on the framework developed by former Special…

Iranian modern thinkers in either of the two categories: Western-minded and religious. The most prominent aspect of Western minded thinkers is their emphasis on separation of tradition and modernity. On the other hand, religious thinkers look forward to combining the two. The Western-minded thinkers believe that the most important burden on…

This article has two aims. First, it is concerned with a discourse in British media and politics of "Muslim education", a concept that often appears alongside words such as "extremism" and "radicalisation" and contributes to the undue "religification" of people of Muslim backgrounds. I offer a preliminary…

In this article, I examine a situation in the academic life of minority faculty members who suffer from systemic inequity in their academic lives, and more specifically, in their music education. The article engages with Bhabha's concept of "enunciation" ([1994] 2004), where difference that has been systemically used against such bodies…

Islamic fundamentalism is an extreme perception of Islam that views "the 'Other' as the enemy demonized" against the "West", which also views the Muslim "enemy within". In contrast, pluralism perceives 'others' as different people, with different values from us. While the fundamentalist seeks to engage in war with the…

This essay is excerpted from the author's book "Divisions within Islam," part of a 10-volume series for middle and high school students on the World of Islam. It provides information on the religious practices and beliefs of Shiism, and its differences with Sunni Islam. It mentions that Shiism is the second-largest denomination of Islam,…

This paper briefly describes the background of the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran, especially the denial of education, and explores what could be done to alleviate this injustice, including enlisting the support of nations, organizations, media and people around the world. Baha'is are the largest religious minority in Iran and have been…

This essay traces the development of the Zarathushtrian (Zoroastrian) priesthood from the time of the prophet Zarathushtra, through the Median priestly tribe as Magi, and the Macedonian and Arab invasions. This sets the stage for the separation of the Zarathushti priesthood between Iran and India and the generation of independent training methods.…

Noting that the terms used by the Western media in describing the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini have created the impression that the Ayatollah is both irrational and inhumane, this paper argues from contemporary eclectic rhetorical theory--that "rationality" is a function of perspective--to…

Discusses whether the intersection of traditional and modern institutions in the Persian Gulf region influences student opportunities to learn. Provides preliminary and empirical indicators of how this might happen by estimating the degree of penetration of Gulf state culture and religious ideology into school organizational environments. (CAJ)

This anthology provides an introduction to a variety of theories about and historical types of church-state relations, past and present. It provides foreign models against which citizens can judge the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. constitutional arrangements. The analysis looks at Catholicism, Islam, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Judaism, and the…