the safavid dynasty was the first iranian centralized administration, which chose shia’a branch of islam as the official religion and the judicial system for iran. in safavi period the state officially established two separate and distinct court system. first the state courts (the urf courts) under the supervision of the secular minister of justice (divan-begi) and the secondly the islamic cour...

This study examines the intergenerational transmission of family religion as measured by parent's and adolescent's beliefs and practices in Buddhism, and its relation to delinquent behaviors among early adolescents in Thailand. The data set is from the Thai Family Matters Project 2007, a representative sample of 420 pairs of parents and teens in Bangkok. A structural equation model is employed ...

Psychiatry has increasingly devoted its attention to the role of religion and spirituality in mental health and illness. All religions offer explanations for meaning and purpose of life, involving rationales for the reality of human suffering and traumas related to natural disasters, war, civil violence, torture, etc. In many countries different religious organizations have funded and operated ...

Research indicates that existential threat may motivate in-group members to retaliate against out-group members. Less is known about the impact of alignment with one’s religious or national group on retaliatory activity. We addressed this deficiency in a longitudinal study before, and soon after, the beginning of the 2015 Palestinian Stabbing Intifada—a terror wave that is still ongoing. We ass...

AIM The concept of spirituality is much discussed in the UK nursing literature, despite the fact that Britain is one of the most secular countries in the world, and steadily becoming more so. Here, I pose the following question: given this increasing secularization, what accounts for the current interest in spirituality among UK nurses? BACKGROUND The literature on spirituality in nursing has...

The economics of religion is a relatively new field of research in economics. This survey serves two purposes – it is backward-looking in that it traces the historical and sociological origins of this field, and it is forward-looking in that it examines the insights and research themes that are offered by economists to investigate religion globally in the modern world. Several factors have infl...