Social Capital of Mosques and Islamic Revolution of Iran: case study of Hedayat Mosque social network

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Abstract

 
The political condition of a state after happening a revolution and confrontation of rival political forces for power and how a group dominates others is one of the most controversial and attractive issues in political science. The Islamic Revolution of Iran is not an exceptional case. Many analysts confess that the social capital accumulated in the Iranian mosques social networks played a significant role in the Islamic Revolution. This role continued until the clergymen as a political force could dominate other rivals in the vacuum created by the lack of central political power. This article conducts a case study on Tehran Hedayat Mosque by using the method of social network analysis in order to measure the amount of social capital accumulation. In this direction, a communication pattern among political activists of this mosque has been provided by the software NodeXL. At the end, the role of this mosque social network in creating normalization of clergymen authority culminated in their political dominance is explained.

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