“Reason defines truth, justice, public interest, and humanity”. From chapter entitled “The Idea of Democratic Religious Government” in Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of Abdolkarim Soroush (Oxford University Press, 2000), edited by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri. Also see editors’ introduction. Modern science explains the world […].
Islamic Democracy and Islamic Governance.
A summary of remarks by Abdolkarim Soroush and Charles Butterworth at The Middle East Institute, November 21, 2000 On November 21, MEI gathered two scholars, the Iranian thinker Abdolkarim Soroush, visiting professor at Harvard University, and Charles Butterworth, Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, for a discussion on “Islamic […].
Types of Religiosity.
When we come to experiential religiosity, we step from the domain of separation into the domain of union. The previous types of religiosity can be described as religiosities of distance, for the first was physical and practical and the second mental and reflective. The first was based on instrumental rationality and the second on theoretical rationality.
Europe versus America.
Although I have visited England dozens of times, I have never spent more than one or two weeks at a single stretch. This year, for the first time, I am in residence for almost two months at Cambridge University, where I am the guest of a college and giving a series of lectures on humanism at the university. Although I have visited England dozens of times […].
Living in Arabic
The debate on the need to reform Islam, the Arabs and their language — by adopting demotic rather than classical Arabic — continues. Before his death last September argued such a debate reflects an extraordinary lack of the quotidian experience of living in Arabic The debate on the need to reform Islam, the Arabs and their language — by […].
The Arab condition.
My impression is that many Arabs today feel that what has been taking place in Iraq over the last two months is little short of a catastrophe. My impression is that many Arabs today feel that what has been taking place in Iraq over the last two months is little short of a catastrophe. True, Saddam Hussein’s regime was a despicable one in every way and it […].
Freud, Zionism, and Vienna
This is a parable worth a few lines here, although it derives from a rather peculiar personal experience of mine which has attracted unusual, if undeserv This is a parable worth a few lines here, although it derives from a rather peculiar personal experience of mine which has attracted unusual, if undeserved, media and public attention. Ordinarily, I don […].
A monument to hypocrisy
It has finally become intolerable to listen to or look at news in this country. I’ve told myself over and over again that one ought to leaf through the daily papers and turn on the TV for the national news every evening, just to find out what “the country” is thinking and planning, but patience and masochism have their limits. it has finally become intol […].
Defiance, dignity, and the rule of dogma
During the discussion period that followed a lecture of mine at Oxford three and a half years ago I was stunned by a question put to me by a young woman, whom I later discovered to have been a Palestinian student working for her doctorate at the university. During the discussion period that followed a lecture of mine at Oxford three and a half years ago […].
Text in Context. Abdolkarim Soroush.
The science of nature is a human endeavor to understand the nature, and the science of religion is a human endeavor to understand religion. All understanding assumes suppositions and entails “categorization,” that is subsuming the particular under universal categories and concepts. Understanding religion is no exception. It is preceded by certain assumpti […].
The Clash of Ignorance.
Samuel Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations?” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction. Samuel Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations?” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of […].
A window on the world.
Western scholars helped justify the war in Iraq, says Edward Said, with their orientalist ideas about the ’Arab mind’. Twenty-five years after the publication of his post-colonial classic, the author of Orientalism argues that humanist understanding is now more urgently required than ever before. Nine years ago I wrote an afterword for Orientalism which, […].
My Encounter with Sartre.
Once the most celebrated intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre had, until quite recently, almost faded from view. He was already being attacked for his ’blindness’ about the Soviet gulags shortly after his death in 1980, and even his humanist Existentialism was ridiculed for its optimism, voluntarism and sheer energetic reach. Once the most celebrated intellect […].
Intellectually Victorious, but Politically Defeated
A wave of hope carried the reformist Mohammed Khatami into the office of president. But since then resignation has spread among the Iranian people as well as among critical religious leaders. An inside report from Ghom by Navid Kermani Mohammed Mojtahed Shabestari is careful when he speaks or writes: although he knows precisely what the political implica […].
Beyond the ‘clash of civilizations’ shaping reform in Muslim societies
The “clash of civilizations” supposedly under way between the West and the Muslim world, which many see as manifested in Iraq, as well as in Saudi Arabia’s growing violence, in fact masks other conflicts – disputes that will probably prove to be far more significant in the long term. One of these struggles is taking place among Muslims themselves over the […].
The Responsibilities of the Muslim Intellectual in the 21st Century
By Farish A. Noor Professor Abdolkarim Soroush is an Iranian philosopher and social scientist who is currently based at the Institute for Epistemological Research in Tehran, Iran. A well-known scholar and Islamist intellectual in Iran and abroad, his writings have been widely disseminated both in print and via the Internet. In Iran, he is seen as an advo […].
For an Open Interpretation of the Koran
The reformist thinker and philosopher Abdolkarim Sorush is one of a new generation of theologians that openly speaks out in favour of human rights and secularism in Iran. Katajun Amirpur about an awkward Iranian intellectual. Most people consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be a fundamentalist theocracy that fosters a radical interpretation of Islam. […].
Adapting to Contemporary Islam
Is Islamic law compatible with democracy and human rights? One of Iran’s best-known reformist clerics has an answer to this question – an answer that challenges Islamic orthodoxy. Journalist Bahman Nirumand reports on a progressive and uncomfortable reformist theologian. Born in 1959, Mohsen Kadivar originally wanted to be an electronic engineer. However […].
