In the Name of God [The paper below was to have been presented by Dr. Soroush at a conference in Tehran on religion and modernity. In the event, it was read out by his son, because Dr. Soroush was told by the authorities that ‘they could not guarantee his security if he attended the conference’.] […]
Orhan Pamuk and Abdolkarim Soroush.(Essay) John von Heyking “You know, I’ve had enough of big ideas.” (2) Whether due to Western-style schemes of “development,” Marxism, nationalism, secularism, or Islamism, the Islamic world has suffered its share of ideological activism. What these ideologies share is a “big idea,” or ideology, that purports to transform the Islamic […]
by Dariush Sajjadi Broadcast on Homa TV on 9 March 2006 Q. I’d like to devote my first question to the crisis stemming from the publication of offensive cartoons of the Prophet of Islam. I remember that, more than six years ago, I saw you and Dr. Samuel Huntington, ‘the clash of civilizations’ theoretician, at […]
An interview with Abdulkarim Soroush by Maryam Kashani Q. What are the characteristics of the phenomenon that has taken shape in the Islamic Republic under Mr Mesbah-Yazdi’s name and why has it materialized? A. Whenever I read and hear that Mr Mesbah-Yazdi is up to some new trick and is making his presence felt and […]
Report written by Masoud Behnoud for the BBC’s Persian Service Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush, in his most recent speech in London entitled “The Ideal Islamic State”, has spoken about the inability of fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] to deal with many of the concerns of modern-day society, as well as about the challenges faced by Muslim immigrants in non-Islamic […]
An interview with Abdulkarim Soroush by Ali Asghar Seyyedabadi Q. Let’s start the discussion with the [June 2005] presidential elections if you don’t mind. The outcome can be linked on two counts to issues of interest to you: one is the question of justice, since some people believe that the government that emerged from the […]
Prospect by: David Herman The two most striking things about this poll are the number of people who took part and the age of the winners. Over 20,000 people voted for their top five names from our longlist of 100, and they tended to reinforce the trends of the original list. More than half […]
Date: September 22, 2005 By: Shaul Bakhash The Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji was arrested in Tehran in April 2000 and, after a series of trials, was sentenced to six years in prison for his political writings, for allegedly spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and for collecting confidential information harmful to national security. By now […]
By Roya Hakakian Sunday, August 21, 2005 The debate over Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons has produced thousands of headlines over the past couple of years, but anyone who’s been following closely should know this much: There is no real news there. The issue has become a mere political symphony in which the same theme […]
By Azam Puya In 1992, Mehdi Bazargan, an Iranian lay Muslim intellectual, expressed a new theological opinion on one of the most important issues that has been the concern of Muslim thinkers and interpreters of the Quran: the purpose of the mission of the prophets. He said that the only purpose of the prophetic mission […]
