by: Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabar<\/p>\n
For more than two decades, Abdulkarim Soroush has been Iran\u2019s leading public intellectual. Deeply versed in Islamic theology and mysticism, he was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to \u201cIslamicize\u201d Iran\u2019s universities, only to eventually turn against the theocratic state. He paid a price for his dissidence. Vigilantes and other government-supported elements disrupted his widely attended lectures in Iran, beat him and reportedly nearly assassinated him. In a country where intellectuals are often treated like rock stars, Soroush has been venerated and reviled for his outspoken support of religious pluralism and democracy. Now he has taken one crucial step further. Shuttling from university to university in Europe and the U.S., Soroush is sending shock waves through Iran\u2019s clerical establishment.<\/p>\n
The recent controversy began about eight months ago, after Soroush spoke with a Dutch reporter about one of Islam\u2019s most sensitive issues: the divine origin of the Koran. Muslims have long believed that their holy book was transmitted word for word by God through the Prophet Muhammad. In the interview, however, Soroush made explicit his alternative belief that the Koran was a \u201cprophetic experience.\u201d He told me that the prophet \u201cwas at the same time the receiver and the producer of the Koran or, if you will, the subject and the object of the revelation.\u201d Soroush said that \u201cwhen you read the Koran, you have to feel that a human being is speaking to you, i.e. the words, images, rules and regulations and the like all are coming from a human mind.\u201d He added, \u201cThis mind, of course, is special in the sense that it is imbued with divinity and inspired by God.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Soroush\u2019s words spread thanks to the Internet, Iran\u2019s grand ayatollahs entered the battlefield. In their rebuttal, the clerics pointed to the Koranic verses that state \u201cthis is a book we have sent down to you (O Muhammad).\u201d They ask, Don\u2019t these verses imply that God is the revealer and Muhammad the receiver? They also point out that there were times when Muhammad waited impatiently for the revelation to come to him and that in more than 300 cases the prophet is commanded to tell his people to do one thing or another. This demonstrates, the argument goes, that the commands are coming from elsewhere rather than from the heart or the mind of the prophet himself.<\/p>\n
Soroush, in turn, responds by saying that the prophet was no parrot. Rather, Soroush told me, he was like a bee who produces honey itself, even though the mechanism for making the honey is placed in him by God. This is \u201cthe example the Koran itself sets,\u201d says Soroush, citing the Koran: \u201cAnd your Lord inspired to the bee: take for yourself among the mountains, houses . . . then eat from all the fruits . . . there emerges from their bellies a drink . . . in which there is healing for people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soroush has been described as a Muslim Luther, but unlike the Protestant reformer, he is no literalist about holy books. His work more closely resembles that of the 19th-century German scholars who tried to understand the Bible in its original context. Case in point: when a verse in the Koran or a saying attributed to Muhammad refers to cutting off a thief\u2019s hand or stoning to death for adultery, it only tells us the working rules and regulations of the prophet\u2019s era. Today\u2019s Muslims are not obliged to follow in these footsteps if they have more humane means at their disposal.<\/p>\n
Soroush\u2019s latest views have not endeared him to the powerful conservative wing of Iran\u2019s establishment. Some have accused him of heresy, which is punishable by death. There have been demonstrations by clerics in Qom, the religious capital of Iran, against his recent work. But Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly warned against feeding the controversy. He said those who are employing \u201cphilosophy or pseudo-philosophy\u201d to \u201cpervert the nation\u2019s mind\u201d should not be dealt with \u201cby declaring apostasy and anger\u201d but rather countered with the \u201creligious truths\u201d that will falsify their arguments.<\/p>\n
In Iran today, many opponents of the government advocate the creation of a secular state. Soroush himself supports the separation of mosque and state, but for the sake of religion. He seeks freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Thus he speaks for a different \u2014 and potentially more effective \u2014 agenda. The medieval Islamic mystic Rumi once wrote that \u201can old love may only be dissolved by a new one.\u201d In a deeply religious society, whose leaders have justified their hold on power as a divine duty, it may take a religious counterargument to push the society toward pluralism and democracy. Soroush challenges those who claim to speak for Islam, and does so on their own terms.<\/p>\n
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar is an adjunct lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by: Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabar For more than two decades, Abdulkarim Soroush has been Iran\u2019s leading public intellectual. Deeply versed in Islamic theology and mysticism, he was chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini to \u201cIslamicize\u201d Iran\u2019s universities, only to eventually turn against the theocratic state. He paid a price for his dissidence. Vigilantes and other government-supported elements disrupted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}