Introduction
The Holy Defense, as one of the most significant events in Iran’s contemporary history, has deeply influenced all political, social, and religious aspects of society. Due to the risks of distortion and forgetting this era, there is an increasing need for scientific investigation and documentation. Accordingly, using scientometric methods and creating ‘science maps’ is a crucial tool for policymakers to identify research trends, top authors, and journals, and to avoid wasting resources on redundant studies. This research aims to map the scientific landscape of articles in the field of Holy Defense, providing a scientific basis to guide future studies and improve research quality by identifying active research areas and existing gaps.
Research Questions
1. Which of the searched scientific databases (Noormags, Magiran, Civilica, SID, and the Comprehensive Portal of Humanities) have the highest frequency of scientific articles in the subject area of Holy Defense?
2. What is the distribution of articles in the field of Holy Defense based on the type of publication (scientific journals and conferences)?
3. What has been the trend of scientific article production in the field of Holy Defense over the years?
4. What is the co-authorship pattern in the published articles of the Holy Defense field?
5. Who are the most productive authors of articles in the field of Holy Defense?
6. What is the organizational affiliation of authors in the production of articles in the field of Holy Defense?
7. Which journals have the largest share in the production of scientific articles in the field of Holy Defense?
8. What is the academic rank or educational level of authors in the field of Holy Defense?
9. What is the academic discipline of the authors in the subject area of Holy Defense?
10. What is the level of collaboration among authors of articles in the field of Holy Defense?
11. What is the co-occurrence pattern of the terms used by authors in the field of Holy Defense?
12. What is the level of collaboration among institutions and universities in the publication of articles in the field of Holy Defense?
13. What is the level of collaboration among authors in the field of Holy Defense with respect to their scientific disciplines?
Literature Review
International scientometric studies have increasingly mapped the scientific landscape of global conflicts. Research by Sillanpää and Koivula (2010) identified “Democratic Peace Theory” as a dominant discourse in conflict studies. Subsequent research has addressed specialized dimensions, including military-induced soil pollution (Stadler et al., 2022), social security for veterans (Radzi, 2024), and the evolving status of women in war zones (Obeidat et al., 2025). Recent crises, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, have been analyzed for their global socio-economic and financial consequences using platforms like Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus (Ahlawat et al., 2022; Zozulinskyy, 2024). Regarding the Iran-Iraq conflict, international efforts—indexed in databases such as Scopus, MEDLINE, and ISI—have remained limited to clinical aspects, such as mustard gas exposure (Nokhodian et al., 2015).
In contrast, domestic studies on the Holy Defense have been fragmented, focusing on specific niches such as theatre dissertations (Motahari et al., 2014), thematic clustering of martyrs’ wills (Tavakolizadeh Ravari & Mahmoudi, 2016; Bahramian, 2021), or limited indexing of selected journals (Ghasemzadeh, 2022). Despite these contributions, there is a notable absence of a comprehensive, systematic mapping of the broader scientific output related to the Holy Defense. This study aims to fill this critical research gap by providing a holistic visualization of thematic clusters and knowledge networks in this field.
Methodology
This study employed a scientometric approach using co-occurrence and network analysis to identify conceptual relationships among research works published on the Holy Defense (Iran–Iraq War). The population comprised all available articles on this topic published between 1991 and 2023 in five Iranian databases: the Comprehensive Portal of Humanities, SID, Noormags, Civilica, and Magiran. The search was performed using 98 specialized keywords. After collecting 10,447 initial records from the five databases using various formats (Excel, RIS, or manual entry), duplicate and irrelevant items were removed, resulting in 4,998 unique articles. Incomplete metadata were corrected through supplementary searches. For each article, additional fields including authors’ academic degree, field of study, and affiliated organization were also collected and harmonized. Finally, a co-occurrence matrix was constructed using RaverPremp software, followed by analysis in Excel, UCINet (for centrality measures), and VOSviewer for visualization.
Conclusion
The present study aimed to map the scientific network of the Holy Defense field in Iran using a scientometric approach, incorporating co-word analysis and co-authorship network analysis. Analysis of 4,998 articles published between 1991 and 2023 showed that scientific output in this field has grown significantly since 2015, with over two thirds of all works published in recent years. Most articles have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, reflecting researchers’ tendency toward producing deep and theoretical knowledge. The co-authorship pattern is mostly limited to one to three authors, while broader scientific collaborations are less common.
Mohammad Reza Soroush, Mostafa Ghanei, and Batool Mousavi were identified as the most prolific authors, while Islamic Azad University, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, and University of Tehran have played a central role in knowledge production in this field. In terms of disciplines, psychology, Persian language and literature, and medical sciences have the largest share, but the absence of defense sciences among the top disciplines represents a critical gap.
Co-authorship network analysis revealed that several authors with high betweenness centrality act as bridging nodes in the scientific network. Furthermore, concepts such as ‘veterans,’ ‘martyrdom,’ ‘culture,’ ‘women,’ ‘post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),’ and ‘mustard gas’ are among the most frequent and central keywords, aligning with the findings of previous domestic and international studies.
In summary, Holy Defense studies in Iran have an interdisciplinary nature, with diverse scientific disciplines contributing. However, author dispersion, limited participation of full professors, and the underrepresentation of non-university institutions are among the main weaknesses. Strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations, supporting early career researchers, establishing a unified national database, and increasing the role of experienced faculty members are among the most important recommendations for the sustainable development of this field.