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Abstract The fertility goddesses are the female deities to watch over and promote productivity, pregnancy and birth in many polytheistic cultures. Although it’s not easy to find exact usage of prehistoric objects, but using historical myths and folkloric tales, we can mention following functions for fertility statues: 1. Native goddess incarnation; that usually is an earth mother or water deity and in relation with love, fertility and productivity. 2. To apply in earth, human and animal fertility ceremonies; puberty rites, sterile women improvement and to ease parturition. 3. Mother symbol; for set in children tombs that a company them in after - death journey. This article tries to survey fertility goddesses in Mesopotamia and Middle East, Anatolia, Mediterranean, prehistoric Europe, Aegean Sea and Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, Ireland, Africa, Egypt, India, China, Japan, continent America and Northern regions.

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Abstract: The motifs are elemental in keeping the structural, semantic and aesthetic consistency of Persian tales. Multiple and often uncertain origins have been counted for fictional motifs, such as mythical and religious narratives, folklores, history and so on. Over the centuries, the motifs have undergone shifts and variations, and transferred from one domain to another. Having been considered as a multi-dimensional bird for possessing various and often contrasting features and functions, "The Raven" also acts as a multi-functional motif in Iranian culture. The function of the raven in texts and narratives has two main origins: mythical and religious. In the first, the raven is linked with the Sun and light, acting as the messenger of the Sun God, brings good omen, and embodies wisdom and foresight; and the second one makes the raven to penetrate the beliefs and mentalitys of men through the story of fratricide of Cain, and thus symbolize death and darkness. The study of how the function and motif of raven have undergone shifts and variations through myth to religion and folklore is the purpose of this paper. The investigation of the function of raven in texts, tales and proverbs, and the analysis of its stability or alteration would bring to light chief and critical points about the (dis)similarity of myth and religion, and the role of raven in Iranian people's attitudes and folklore.

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  Name is a socio-cultural phenomenon, which accompanies humans from before birth until death. This element has roots in the historical, intellectual, national and religious beliefs of the individuals. People are proud of their good names and choose proper names for their children. One of the most frequent and popular patterns of the Iranians since long time ago till now, has been the use of holy religious names, either in simple forms, combined or derivative. These words which are derived from the names of God, Prophets, and Holy Imams (Peace be upon them) have been frequently given to the individuals, places, tribes, clans, etc. The Shia People of Chaharmahal-o-Bakhtiari use these names in different combinations. In the present study, scores of single, or triple combinations of Persian (both Persian and Bakhtiari), Arabic, and Turkish names have been collected, categorized and presented through field study and library method. Finally, a brief comparison has been made using official figures and statistics.  

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 Dialogue and its function in the globalization is one of common concepts in societies and cultures and obligation of acceptance of dialogue in that is always recommended. Dialogue is one of reaction of cultural elements that can appear in the various realms that its condition of appearance is acceptance of believes of common universal. One of the realms, in the verbal communication realm, is religious and mystical apocalypses that this realm is accepted as one of the religion dimensions.
 This research in the realm universal apocalypses (Zoroastrians, Old and New Testament, Islamic Sufism) analyses the meaning of second of word (Apocalypse) in addition to attention meaning of first (revelation). Nevertheless, this research considers the relation of apocalypse with other similar terms like Myth, Eschatology, and millennium. The research, in addition to analyse structure of Apocalypse in the religious texts of West and East, study Motifs and themes of this term in the scripture and heaven religions.

 

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It was not just the uneducated human in ancient times who believed in an invisible magic powers in the world, and people have always believed in “ANIMISM” and “FITSH”. From many long time ago, people used to think that some objects, animals, and sky and stars have these invisible magic powers.  Because of his little amount of knowledge, he had no chance of understanding the scientific rules that run the world. So he began to believe       in the influence of these invisible magic powers over his daily life in order to make reason for bad events of his life or even to prevent them. He had to adjust every little things of his life to these believes. In Iranian religion before Islam, like other ancient religions, many superstitions looked legal and rightful, and also believing in the influence of sky and stars on days and years;  in astrology, and in prediction  was very usual.  In this research, different kinds of prediction  according to the middle Persian texts will be studied: prediction based  on inspiration, influence of sky and stars on days and years, the things that should be done and not should be done on specific days, soothsaying texts based on numbers in a Zoroastrian Omen Manuscript, including: the  number omen with numbers1-5, the omen of JAMASP E HAKIM, and omen of ANAAMOL.

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Religion, philosophy, and language are inseparable and important elements of every culture. Suppose a culture is supposed to be transmitted from one land to another and the target culture is assumed to become sublime due to this transmission. In that case, its components should be transmitted correctly, consciously, and fully observed by the cultural guardians to provide the required contexts for the acceptance, establishment, and growth of rationality and religion in society. Otherwise, a serious conflict occurs between the supporters of the previous culture and the supporters of the imported culture. In his works, al-Fārābī, while explaining the formation of these components in human society and their relationship, explains the way of their transmission and makes a good pathology. According to al-Fārābī, philosophy is created by developing language skills and man's acquisition of syllogism techniques. Philosophy uses religion to establish laws in society and guide people towards happiness.
 

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Atheists often believe that modern science supports their viewpoint. Some claim that the metaphysical basis of contemporary science leaves no room for religious beliefs, asserting that there is a fundamental incompatibility between science and theism. However, a couple of philosophers argue that this claim is misguided and that there are actually compelling reasons to see a profound compatibility between theism and science. In this paper, we will demonstrate, based on Alvin Plantinga's epistemology on one hand and Al-Ghazali's hermeneutic theory on the other, that not only is there no serious conflict between science and theistic beliefs, but we can also view them as interdependent.
 

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The sociological study of the impact of the clergy's approaches, on the transition to democratic procedures of governing the society, has many advantages over the theological study of relationship between religion and democracy. This impact can be inferred and began from social movements of the first half of 20th century in Iran. The most appropriate approach for investigating this issue is comparative-historical analysis, and three democratic transitions in three historical periods- Constitutional Movement, the Nationalist Movement in the first cabinet of Mussadegh, and the Nationalist Movement in his second cabinet- are appropriate for comparison. Theoretical studies in the areas of cultural change (Secularization theories regarding modernity and religion), social change (world-system theories and social movements), and political change (transition theories), provides a useful theoretical framework from which it can be extracted a model to explain the transition in Iran, according to the conditions of Iran's history and the world during the period. This model will be on the basis of historical comparison of the three democratic transitions, and will be examined by method of agreement, Boolean analysis and ordinal comparison. In this scientific test, accurate understanding of causal factors in the transition to democracy in Iran will be provided. Theoretical and practical revisions of religious elites in the face of the modern world, as well as, contexts, causes and political consequences of the transitions will be clarified by narrative analysis, and finally, the position of the clergy's approaches among the causal factors of the transition will be understood. Religious leaders were influenced by macro transition contexts, and they created relatively stable and unstable changes in religious institution. Their appropriate and inappropriate positions to the transition process and their effective functioning in transition process are usually important to the transition.

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Today, in historical and cultural studies, objects and images are also called sources of information as text- document. They are important not only to supply the information of written sources, but also to provide information enabling writers of historical texts who have not been able to express them. Examining these works and reading commonly used cultural themes can help better understand public opinion and lifestyle. The themes of magic and amulet are derived from the main doctrines and ways of thinking. The common cultural and religious ties that unite them are closely tied to the popular culture of the people. In the context of this study and in order to understand the influence of ideology and religion on the material culture of the Qajar period, the authors have tried to apply different themes to these works by studying the case of armbands to answer the following question: how do Islamic Shi'a notions fit into the apparent structure and patterns of Qajar armbands? Research methodology is descriptive – analytical. In this research, this issue has been addressed in two parts of the position of Iranian -Islamic culture and the formal and cultural annexes of amulets (narratives, codes and decipherments). The result of this study, while demonstrating the direct effect of Shia and Islamic beliefs on Qajar periodical armbands, showed the direct effect of popular beliefs on how these works are used and designed.
 

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When Gazan Khan appointed Rashid al-Din Fazlolah Hamedani the vizier, Persia was in a critical state. As Rahidal-Din believed that this crisis is because of Mongol’s political ideas, he tried to transform Ilkhanate Government into a central power with the use of Iranshahri ideas. Some of his attempts to make political changes can be found in the linguistic structure of his letters. With specific use of language, Rashid al-Din tries to deconstruct political concepts according to Iranshahri ideas. With the use of some language tools such as naming, word choice, verb choice, and conceptual metaphors, this research studies three political concepts, namely, king, people, and religionin Rahidal-Din’s letters. He uses pre-Islamic Iranian kings’ names for Mongols in order to give Mongols an Iranian identity and to justify their domination in Iran. The study of verbs shows that Rashid al-Din gives weak social role to people. He mostly employs linking verbs for people. He also uses religion as a tool to improve Ilkhanate’s power. Therefore, he calls a newly-converted Mongol king, “king of Islam,” “supporter of Allah’s land” and “supporter of Allah’s servants.”

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Rituals are among the ceremonies that bring people together and preserve and reproduce cultural monuments in every nation. Among the people of Kohgiloye Vobir Ahmad, there are rituals, rooted in the ancient Iran, that represent plant themes. Among these rituals, which are still practiced today with the same style, are the Pol Borun, reading Sharbah, the sacrificial, Balagarduni, and Chalegarm Konun. The Pol Borun ritual is performed in the absence of a woman's spouse who cuts her hair and then buries it under an oak tree. In the sacrificial ritual, the animal is sacrificed under the oak tree at the top of the mountain or under the bush by the river to shed its blood as a sign of fertility. In the ritual of Balagarduni, in addition to planting patches on the tree to keep the evil eyes away, mountain plants are also used. In the Chalegarm Konun, while taking green plants to the tombs before the New Year's Eve, some Ash (food) is cooked with eight oak sticks and then divided among the locals. The purpose of this study is to analyze the vegetative signs in the rituals of the people in Kohgiloye Vobir Ahmad and explain the literary aspects of these local poems. This research is based on the field library study, qualitative content analysis, and the semi-structured interviews. Many elements of herbal plants, such as polypropylene, mulch and smoking, sheding blood in the sacrificial rites, and pruning the graves have mythological representation in the Iranian culture.
 
 

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The goal of this article is to study the idea of universality of music; especially its status in mystical viewpoint.
An analytical-descriptive methodology has been adopted in this article and the related data have been gathered from libraries and existing documents.
The most important achievement of this study is that a number of musical works have attained a symbolic and spiritual format and have drawn the attention of people toward the supernatural world. Also, many musical instruments have been a symbol of spirituality. Mystical figures, in their musical works, have taken into consideration the manifestations of God Almighty

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Girl in a Fur Coat is the name of a motif in which a girl escapes her father's harassment. She is looking for a way to escape and find the solution in a skin that covers her from head to toe. This motif, which is classified in the Arne-Thompson list under number 510B, is called "donkey skin". In the classification of Iranian tales, it is called "Cinderella" and in the classification of Arabic tales it is called "shirt like the sun, shirt like the moon and shirt like the stars". This article tries to introduce the mentioned type because it is not well-known among Iranian researchers of folk literature. In addition, by using the collection of works in which the folk tales of Iran as well as the lands of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Sudan, Palestine, Iraq and Jordan are gathered, the Iranian and Arabic narratives are analyzed. To this aim, these narrations can be divided into several categories. Studies show that based on the girl's solution to escape from her father's house, the narrations of this motif can be divided into three categories: 1-510B: The girl hidden in the object; 2-510B: Girl in a fur coat / wooden mannequin; 3-510B: The girl and her brother. Also, this research, based on Propp's hypertext model, seeks to find the beliefs and customs that make up the "fur-clad girl". Myths and customs found in Zurvanism and Zoroastrianism can be considered as the origin for this type in Iranian stories, because it mentions the intercourse of Ahura Mazda with his mother, sister and daughter, and considers "xᵛaētuuadaθa" a ritual and sacred act.
 

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Abstract
Despite significant studies in the field of cultural revolutions; comparative study of Iran, China and Russia Cultural Revolutions is less common due to the role of religion. The question of this study was how did each of the cultural revolutions in Russia, China, and Iran relate to the religious teachings of the social context in which they occurred?
According to the study conditions, the authors have briefly addressed the secular and revolutionary-religion approaches in cultural revolutions and attempted to test these approaches by using the comparative-historical method based on the selected events. Historical-comparative study has been done in intra-systemic and inter-systemic form; at the intra-systemic level the process of relationship between the two phenomena has been narrated and at the inter-systemic level the religious characteristics of the Cultural Revolution in the three countries have been compared using the Mill methods.
Findings shows that in all three cases, the role of religion is important, but the Iranian characteristics support the ideal perspective and the characteristics of Russia and China confirm the instrumental perspective on the role of religion in the Cultural Revolution. The results of the article, while confirming the authors' claim, explain the differences and similarities between the three events studied.

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Asking about the place of religion in a democratic society refers straightforwardly to the kind of pluralism we adopt. Given that intra-societal tensions mark out a democratic pluralistic society, then it seems that there is no doubt that there should be a place for religion and religious people in it. What is crucial for a democratic society is taking a suitable view on pluralism. There could be, at least, two versions of pluralism: Incommensurable or radical and commensurable or moderate. It is argued that the incommensurable account of pluralism confronts with serious problems both theoretically (like the impossibility of outer critique) and practically (like replacing persuasion with force). Rorty advocates a commensurable pluralism based on pragmatic conventions or “know-how” skills without any meta-narrative or translation manual among the doctrines of rival views. However, along with Davidson, it is stated that some kind of translation among the rival views is inevitable. In addition, it is argued that commensurable pluralism could not be limited to merely know-how skills and it needs some know-that insights. This view of pluralism not only opens the door of dialogue, but also provides a basis for removing superficial differences or conflicts between the rivals. Real differences, however, could remain and should be tolerated.

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This article studies Sanai’s views on the four domains of definition, status, and criticism of poetry, in addition to the bond between poetry and religion. In his definition or interpretation of poetry, he opposes the element of imagination and considers it to be the opposite of research. In his poems, Sanai has at times observed poetry and religion to be against and at other times to be in line with each other. Sanai, in his works, has criticized poetry and poets. The root causes of his criticism include plagiarism, rise of poets from among common people, and hollowness of some poems.