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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Alternative Sociology: Probing into the Sociological Thought of Allama M. T. Jafari Introduction How could local thinkers be globally presented? Is there any specific mechanism to carry out such a task?

Of course, I do not mean that thinkers such as Allama Jafari are not globally significant but the matter of the fact is that in despite of the global significance of his thought the paradigm of Allama Jafari is not known globally.[^1] The question of ‘’relevance’’ in the global context could be approached in two different but interrelated sense, i.e.

substantially and formally.[^2] Here the question of relevancy is not related to the substantial dimension of Allama Jafari as this aspect could be intellectually appraised and critically assessed by anybody who knows the Persian language and is well-versed in human sciences and philosophy.

On the contrary, the question is of formal significance as it seems the disciplinary rationality by being the dominant mode of reflexivity it does inhibit the presence of other forms of wisdom which struggle against reductionism of soft or hard kinds.

In other words, to present the body of Allama Jafari’s thought is not only a matter of translation or interpretation of parts or all aspects of his writings into globally significant languages such as English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Japanese and so on and so forth.

Because the act of translation may at its best convey the epistemological dimensions of Allama Jafari’s thought and concerns but it cannot transmit the pre- epistemological concerns of his traditions across the cultures which are of crucial importance in re-presenting a scholar of his caliber in a global stage.

Generally speaking, the frame of Allama Jafari’s discourse is consisted of seven broad streams of philosophy, jurisprudence, mysticism, art, literature, natural and social sciences, and poetry. In other words, to understand the landscape of Allama Jafari’s body of thought one need to take into consideration these complex dimensions within the Irano-Islamic context in a multicultural fashion.

In addition, the incessant dialog of Allama Jafari with other global traditions such as European, Russian, Indian and Chinese philosophies and literary discourse should not be disregarded as the totality of what he has left behind is inseparable from all these various streams.