The Necessity of Semantic Evolution in Civilizational Process in Ayatollah Khamenei’s View

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor in Research Center of Islamic Sciences and Culture, Qom, Iran

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the necessity of semantic evolution in the civilizational process in Ayatollah Khamenei’s view, with an emphasis on its Quranic origin. The research method is descriptive-analytical, and it discusses two levels of concepts. The first consists of concepts in the national level, such as ‘insight’, ‘explanation jihad’, ‘insider and outsider’, ‘cultural NATO’, ‘resistance economy’, and ‘software movement’. The second consists of concepts in the transnational level, such as ‘civilization’, ‘historical turning point’, ‘resistance’, and ‘new order’. The results showed that Ayatollah Khamenei, with his insistence on resistance against the system of global dominance, created, on the one hand, new genuine concepts and, on the other hand, focused on breaking and criticizing the western secular concepts. In this way, he opened a new different way for the revolutionary individuals and Iran after the Islamic revolution. In passing through the era full of riots and turbulences after the revolution and the crisis after Imam Khomeini’s departure, the Iranian Islamic revolution, and even the whole world of resistance, owe much to intelligence, efforts and insistence of Ayatollah Khamenei in preventing the infiltration of eclectic meanings into the semantic and identity network of Islamic revolution. Now, it seems that in the continuation of this civilizational movement, and for providing the new semantic masses in the Islamic world, it is essential for the Islamic community (ummah) and the Muslim elites in the Islamic world to read the Quran repeatedly and extract new meanings from the Quran and Sunnah to be used in their civilizational process. They must also expand the operation of inquiry on the Quran and use it in interactions between civilizational needs and challenges of the Islamic world on the one hand, and religious texts and Islamic heritage on the other hand. No doubt, this is one of the basic steps in line with freedom from hegemonic meanings of capitalism and secularism of the western world.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Islamic Political Studies
Volume 5, Issue 2
July 2023
Pages 39-67

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