Religious intellectualism in Iran
Religious intellectualism in Iran (Persian: روشنفکری دينی) is a process that involves philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and cultural theorists.
The unifying traits of these intellectuals include their recognition of reform in the Islamic thought, democracy, civil society and religious pluralism and their opposition to the absolute supremacy of the Faqih.
Soroush’s main idea is that there are perennial unchanging religious truths, but our understanding of them remains contingent on our knowledge in the fields of science and philosophy.
Influenced by Persian mysticism, religious intellectuals advocated a type of reformist Islam that went beyond most liberal Muslim thinkers of the 20th century and argued that the search for reconciliation of Islam and democracy was not a matter of simply finding appropriate phrases in the Qur'an that were in agreement with modern science, democracy, or human rights.
Hegel, Karl Popper, and Erich Fromm, Iranian intellectuals called for a reexamination of all tenets of Islam, insisting on the need to maintain the religion's original spirit of social justice and its emphasis on caring for other people.
[2][3] The glorious period of religious intellectual achievements was due to a well-known early school of thought known as "Mo'tazeleh".
[4] Iranian religious intellectuals, in the tradition of the Motazelites, proceed from a rationality not confined to religion, a free and independent thought which is thoroughly modern in its assertions as distinct from its presuppositions.
Absolute rejection of jurisprudents' specific right to manage the public domain makes it possible for all people to participate.
"Rationalism", Soroush states, "is one of the most sturdy elements of epistemological discourse," especially as it promotes democratic methods of governance.
Further, the collective intellect of society should decide its administration, not a preplanned religious platform that is, in reality, the cumulative understanding of the fuqaha.
The rhetoric of this democratic discourse is noncombative and emphasizes the personal "rights" of "citizens" and calls for the institutionalization of civil liberties.
That is to say, it is not necessary for Muslims to refer to the Quran in order to discover laws for politics, economics and society, or theories of mathematics or natural sciences, and so on.
To discover these laws, Muslims, like non-Muslims, must refer to collective reason; that is, to rely on achievements in the fields of science and philosophy.
[16] As John Hick put it, pluralism is the belief that no one religion has a monopoly of the truth or of the life that leads to salvation.
Rumi, very respectfully makes frequent references to Greek philosophers of different schools of thought including the atomists.
In many of his poems, he resembles God to sunlight which is reflected in the prism of human thought as different religious orders.
This allegory is probably the best illustration of pantheism which regards God as One and at the same time believes in His multiple representations in the world (this sounds like panentheism).
Although pantheism was not a thoroughgoing pluralism, its advocacy of a pluralistic notion of God's representation, gave rise to a pluralistic tendency in religious and philosophical thought of the Mediaeval Times in the Islamic world, and pantheism even influenced prominent thinkers of Modern Times such as Leibniz and Spinoza.
Hafez knew well that, in a religious society, inviting people to exercise tolerance would fail to have any impact or captivate hearts unless it was accompanied by an insightful theory of human nature and religion.
This is why he astutely tried throughout his works to use the language of poetry and allusion to elucidate a theory of this kind and to persuade his audience that his recommendation was not just a case of well-intentioned sermonizing but that magnanimity and tolerance were sound philosophical notions that rested on solid foundations.
Furthermore, theologians like Morteza Motahhari, Javadi Amoli and Mesbah Yazdi have criticized them because of diversion from Shia and Islamic theology.
