This thematic edition of the Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities explores current issues and challenges in Iran within the scope of the social sciences. A total of 14 articles are presented in this edition of the journal and all the articles are written by Iranian scholars and researchers who are academic staff and researchers of the University of Tehran (UT). Although the issues discussed in this edition of the journal are very much central to Iran and Iranian communities, they will strike a chord with Malaysian readers because Iran and Malaysia share certain common characteristics that include religious affiliation as well as cultural expression, to some extent. These articles present significant contributions as they highlight issues that are current and therefore, pertinent to the people of Iran, reflecting as they do on the country’s development across all sectors.
All the papers published in this edition underwent Pertanika’s stringent peer-review process involving a minimum of two reviewers comprising internal as well as external referees. The papers have been revised accordingly by their authors based on the comments and suggestions provided by the reviewers. This was to ensure the quality of the papers justified the high ranking of the journal, which is renowned as a heavily-cited journal not only by authors and researchers in Malaysia but by those in other countries around the world as well.
The guest editors of this special issue of the journal wish to sincerely thank the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran (UT) for its support and commitment towards publishing this special issue. We would also like to state that we have learnt much from our collaboration with Universiti Putra Malaysia in preparing this special edition for publication.
We thank the Chief Executive Editor, Dr. Nayan Kanwal, for his tremendous efforts, leadership, courage and dedication to improving the quality of this issue. Through this experience, we have been able to deepen our own knowledge of the demanding processes involved in publishing with a journal of tremendous international standing such as Pertanika.
Last but not the least, we wish to thank all those who have contributed, either directly or indirectly, in the successful publication of this thematic edition of the Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Guest Editors: Aini Ideris (Prof. Datin Paduka Dato’ Dr.) Abbas Ghanbari Baghestan (Dr.) Zaid Ahmad (Prof. Dr.)
February 2018