Saeid Reza Ameli; Gholamreza Solgi; Maryam Razani; Mansore Hejazi; Zahra Karami; Rozhan Eskandar; Faeze Mostofi
Abstract
Typically, people deal with their environment and talk about their identity, and shape their identity with the results of such negotiations. In situations where the person experiences changes like migration or converting to a new religion in his life, the negotiations will be intensified in order to ...
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Typically, people deal with their environment and talk about their identity, and shape their identity with the results of such negotiations. In situations where the person experiences changes like migration or converting to a new religion in his life, the negotiations will be intensified in order to adapt to the new findings, and leads him/her to choose strategies to adapt to these changes and to reach a new identity. Now the question is: what strategies does the Newly Muslim choose in Iran about the factors of identity, such as name, dress, entertainment, relationships (with friends and relatives), Sharia (Islamic Laws) and prayers and financial issues in order to achieve a new identity? What aspects of the Identity of the New Muslim Converts are distinct from their identity before Islam? What aspects of their former identity have continued and what are their specific features? The study has been conducted in two stages by interviewing many converts, and with the categorization of the interviews, nine strategies have been extracted about the negotiation of New Muslim Converts’ identity with the Iranian society.
Hassan Bashir
Abstract
Hijab is a sign, a sign of cultural differences which has various emergences in different communities. In this article the Islamic veil among Muslims in the West is discussed as an “Islamic Identity” and as a phenomenon of “Cultural Difference” with the Western societies. This ...
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Hijab is a sign, a sign of cultural differences which has various emergences in different communities. In this article the Islamic veil among Muslims in the West is discussed as an “Islamic Identity” and as a phenomenon of “Cultural Difference” with the Western societies. This sign has represented the Muslim not only as a religious group, a minority which belongs to the East, and a group of people that their culture is different with the dominant culture of the West, but also is different from Westerners how does not accept the culture of veil for women in general. Furthermore, it is emerging different cultural and religious discourses in the Western societies which could be assumed as a challenge to the dominant culture of freedom, liberalism and feminism discourse. This paper aims to clarify the approaches of cultural semiotics, especially, the cultural policy of difference as a new approach to strengthen the neo-orientalism and neo-colonialism approaches and how the discourse of the veil and the otherness is developed in the Western societies. Discourse analysis of various news and reports in Western Media demonstrate the emergence of new methods of discourse on issues related to Islam and Muslims in general and the “Islamic veil” as a special way of life to put the “Islamic Identity” in opposition to the “Western Identity” which is affected by the orientalism discourse on its old and new approaches. This new way of discourse is trying to institutionalize the idea of “I and the other” based on the new understanding of “otherness” and “the cultural policies of difference”.
Hasan Bashir; Mohammad Reza Rohani
Abstract
Increasing presence of Islam all over the world is an undeniable truth, and not only Muslims, but also other people endorse this truth. In the USA, like other countries, a Muslim minority has appeared which is in interaction, or even in confrontation, with the hegemonic majority. Among the intercultural ...
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Increasing presence of Islam all over the world is an undeniable truth, and not only Muslims, but also other people endorse this truth. In the USA, like other countries, a Muslim minority has appeared which is in interaction, or even in confrontation, with the hegemonic majority. Among the intercultural communication’s theorists, Mark Orbe and Regina Spellers study this interaction or confrontation in their theory of co-culture. Thus, applying phenomenology and theory of “the silent group” and theory of “point of view”, one can study Muslim agents’ behavior as a co-cultural group confronting the hegemonic group which is hierarchically in the high level of identity. In such a condition, American Muslims have applied a special communication strategy, both in relation with each other and with the dominant structure. This may occurred either as complete conformity with the dominant condition, or as insulation, or as cambium interaction; all depending on the historical experiments and deep interactions.
Maryam Sadat Ghiasian
Abstract
This study attempts to introduce two main currents in orientalism, the classic and the modern. The Western attitude toward the Orient, and especially Islam, is analyzed in both currents and the operative factors that lead to modern orientalism are surveyed. The 9th September 2001 event is here considered ...
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This study attempts to introduce two main currents in orientalism, the classic and the modern. The Western attitude toward the Orient, and especially Islam, is analyzed in both currents and the operative factors that lead to modern orientalism are surveyed. The 9th September 2001 event is here considered one of the most important points in modern orientalism. Media are here assumed to play a crucial role in representation of the orientalist and racist attitudes which nowadays focus on cultural differences. Accordingly, the present study surveys reflections of western cultural attitudes toward Iran in the linguistic construction of two British journals, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph and two American ones, Time and Newsweek, after the occurrence of the 9/11 event.
