![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Since the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, radical changes have taken place in the views of many Iranian scholars regarding the nature of religious belief. In particular, the issue of the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam's socio-legal precepts and the challenges of time and space have become a crucial matter for numerous Iranian intellectuals. This paper discusses how three prominent Iranian intellectuals of the post-revolutionary era, namely Mostafa Malekian, Mohsen Kadivar and Hasan Yousefi-Eshkevari, have put forward arguments in favor of the contingent nature of the Quran's socio-legal passages. The paper argues that these scholars challenge the notion of the immutability of the Quran's socio-legal texts, claiming that they could be applied differently depending on the specific time and place. In this sense, the paper establishes the groundwork for showing how these scholars have re-examined traditional understandings of religion in light of the new challenges that are arising in the modern world.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors [grant number DP140101353].
Notes
1. We use the term ‘progressive’ to refer to such values as anti-authoritarianism, democracy and gender equality in the sense used by Omid Safi in Introduction: The Times They are Changing - A Muslim Quest for Justice, Gender Equality and Pluralism in O. Safi (ed.), Progressive Muslims on Justice, Gender and Pluralism (Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2003), p.3.
2. Jahanbegloo argues that ‘the current role of intellectuals in Iran is quite different from what it was before revolution. The reevaluation of political ideals [has] been part of a learning process that has generated a collective sense of responsibility among younger intellectuals’. R. Jahanbegloo, ‘The Role of the Intellectuals’, Journal of Democracy Vol.11, No.4 (2000), p.137; for the ideas of Shariati on democracy, see F. Jahanbakhsh, Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran (1953–2000): From Bazargan to Soroush (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p.120; for the anti-Western discourses, see A. Mirsepassi, ‘Religious Intellectuals and Western Critiques of Secular Modernity’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Vol.26, No.3 (2006), pp.416–33; for Jalal Al-e Ahmad's attack on westernization and the way he popularized the term ‘Westoxification’, see Fariba Taghavi, ‘Secular Apparition: The Resurgence of Liberal-Democratic Intellectual Discourse’ (PhD thesis, University of California, 2007), pp.132–5.
3. N. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p.305.
4. According to Asef Bayat, the term religious intellectuals (rowshanfekrān-e dini) first appeared in a speech delivered by Muhammad Khatami, long before he became the president. The term refers to a group of intellectuals who are neither ‘religious fanatics’, nor ‘secular intellectuals’, although religious intellectuals are not a uniform group. Asef Bayat, The Making of Post-Islamist Iran in Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam (Oxford: Oxford University of Press, 2013), p.49.
5. For a brief analysis of Kiyan, see Jahanbakhsh, Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, pp.142–3.
6. M. Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p.120.
7. M. Kamrava, ‘Iranian Shiism Under Debate’, Middle East Policy Vol.10, No.2 (2003), pp.102–12; Jahanbakhsh, Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, pp.142–3; A. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp.113–8.
8. For some studies on Soroush's and Shabestari's thought, see A. Katajun, ‘The Expansion of the Prophetic Experience: Abdolkarim Soroush's New Approach to Quranic Revelation’, Die Welt des Islams Vol.51, No.3–4 (2011), pp.409–37; A. Dahlen, Islamic Law, Epistemology and Modernity: Legal Philosophy in Contemporary Iran (New York: Routledge, 2003); C.D. Fletcher, ‘The Methodology of Abdolkarim Soroush: A Preliminary Study’, Islamic Studies Vol.44, No.4 (2005), pp.527–52; B. Ghamari-Tabrizi, Islam and Dissent in Post-Revolutionary Iran: ʿAbdolkarim Soroush, Religious Politics and Democratic Reform (London: I.B.Tauris, 2008); M. Hashas, ‘Abdolkarim Soroush: The Neo-Muʿtazilite that Buries Classical Islamic Political Theology in Defense of Religious Democracy and Pluralism’, Studia Islamica Vol.109 (2014), pp.147–73; S. Hunter, Islamic Reformist Discourse in Iran: Proponents and Prospects in S.T. Hunter (ed.), Reformist Voices of Islam: Mediating Islam and Modernity (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), pp.33–97.
9. The only English-language study on Malekian's thought is: Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, ‘Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality, Siyasat-Zadegi and (A)political Self-Improvement’, Digest of Middle East Studies Vol.23, No.2 (2014), pp.279–311; M. Badamchi, Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017), pp.149–78; there are few studies on Kadivar's thought. See Y. Matsunaga, ‘Mohsen Kadivar, An Advocate of Postrevivalist Islam in Iran’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Vol.34, No.3 (2007), pp.317–29; Y. Matsunaga, ‘Human Rights and New Jurisprudence in Mohsen Kadivar's Advocacy of ‘New-Thinker’ Islam’, Die Welt des Islams Vol.51 (2011), pp.358–81.
10. For Soroush's and Shabestari's theories of revelation see: A. Soroush, The Expansion of Prophetic Experience: Essays on Historicity, Contingency and Plurality in Religion, trans. Nilou Mobasser (Leiden: Brill, 2009); A. Soroush, ‘The Word of Muhammad: An Interview with Abdolkarim Soroush by Michel Hoebink’. http://www.drsoroush.com/English/Interviews/E-INT-The%20Word%20of %20Mohammad.html; M.M. Shabestari, ‘Ghera‘ate nabavi az jahan’ [Prophetic Interpretation of the World]. http://mohammadmojtahedshabestari.com; for an examination of how Shabestari's understandings of revelation influence his approach to the interpretation of the Quran, see A. Akbar, ‘A Contemporary Muslim Scholar's Approach to Revelation: Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari's Reform Project’, Arabica Vol.63, No.6 (2016), pp.656–80.
11. See H.Y. Eshkevari, Islamic Democratic Government in Z. Mir-Hosseini and R. Tapper (eds.), Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2006), p.96; H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Naqdi bar Araye Abdolkarim Soroush dar bab-e vahy va nabovat’ [Criticism of the Ideas of Abdolkarim Soroush Concerning Revelation and Prophecy]. http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=5484.
12. M. Malekian, Goriz-e manavi, p.16 (We used the PDF version of the book). http://3danet.ir/%DA%AF%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%B2-%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C/.
13. Ibid., p.15.
14. See: Badamchi, Post-Islamist Political Theory, p.166.
15. We use the term literalism in this article to refer to the idea that the literal meaning of the text is privileged over all other forms of meanings in the process of interpretation. When it comes to the socio-legal passages of the Quran, a literalist interpretation of the Quran assumes that words are able to be understood separately from their context and that socio-legal statements of the Quran should be applied independently of their context in all times and places. For an explanation of how conservatives support a literal reading of the Quran, see Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution, p.93.
16. Malekian's intellectual project differs from those of Kadivar and Eshkevari in that the former criticized the project of religious intellectualism from the late 1990s. He argues that religious intellectualism is a contradictory term which should be replaced by the term spiritual intellectualism. See Badamchi, Post-Islamist Political Theory, p.153.
17. In particular, we will refer to the conservative/Islamist discourses which argue socio-legal rulings of the Quran should be implemented independently of their original context.
18. Z. Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2006), p.1.
19. F. Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), p.215.
20. Boroujerdi, ‘Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality, Siyasat-Zadegi and (A)political Self-Improvement’, p.282.
21. See A. Saeed, ‘Some Reflections on the Contextualist Approach to Ethico-legal Texts of the Quran’, Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies Vol.71, No.2 (2008), pp.221–37.
22. Ibid., p.222.
23. M. Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (1) [Spirituality: The Essence of Religions] in Sonnat va sekularism [Tradition and Secularism] (Tehran: Serat Publication, 2009), p.269.
24. M. Kadivar, Hokumat-e Vellaei (Government of Guardianship) (Tehran: Ney Publication, 1999), p.20 cited in Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, 215.
25. Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, 208.
26. H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq-e Bashar va Ahkam-e ejtemayi-e Islam [Human Rights and the Social Precepts of Islam]’. http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=751.
27. For a good overview of this position, see Saeed, ‘Some Reflections on the Contextualist Approach to Ethico-legal Texts of the Quran’, pp.221–37; A. Saeed, Reading the Quran in A.B. Sajoo (ed.), A Companion to the Muslim World (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2009), pp.73–84. Textualism refers to the idea that places some degrees of reliance on the literal meaning of the Quranic text (see A. Saeed, Reading the Quran in the Twenty-First Century: A Contextualist Approach (London: Routledge, 2014), pp.3, 20).
28. For a good overview of this position, see M. Karimi-Nia, ‘The Historiography of the Quran in the Muslim World: The Influence of Theodor Noldeke’, Journal of Quranic Studies, Vol.15, No.1 (2013), pp.48–9.
29. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, as a contextualist scholar, argues that the Quran, once revealed to the Prophet, entered history and became subject to socio-historical regulations or the laws surrounding it. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Naqd al-khitab al-dini (Critique of Religious Discourse) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1995), p.93; Abu Zayd uses this idea to contextualize the socio-legal statements of the Quran, emphasizing their mutability especially in today's context. Fazlur Rahman, another contextualist scholar, argues that if the Quran is to be relevant to contemporary conditions, a double movement is required: ‘first, one must move from the concrete case treatments of the Quran—taking the necessary and relevant social conditions of that time into account—to the general principles upon which the entire teaching converges. Second, from this general level there must be a movement back to specific legislation, taking into account the necessary and relevant social conditions now obtaining’; Fazlur Rahman, Islam & Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982), p.20.
30. M. Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori: Goftegu dar bab-e farhang va siyasat [Longing and Separation: Dialogues in Culture and Politics] (4th ed, Tehran: Nashr-e negah-e moaser, 2010), pp.369–70.
31. M. Malekian, Rahi beh rahai: jostar-hayee dar aghlāniyat va ma'naviyat [A Path to Emancipation: Essays on Rationality and Spirituality] (5th ed, Tehran: Nashr-e negah-e moaser, 2010), p.480.
32. Ibid., p.501.
33. Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (1), p.285.
34. Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori, p.401.
35. Ibid., pp.400–1.
36. M. Kadivar, Haq al-nās: Islam va Huquq-e Bashar [The Right of People: Islam and Human Rights] (Tehran: Kavir Publication, 2008), p.37.
37. Ibid., p.160.
38. Ibid., p.40.
39. H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Tamami-ye Ahkam-e ejtemayi-e islam manand-e Diyat va qavanin-e Keyfari va Hoquq-e Zan Taqir-pazitand [All Social Precepts of Islam such as the Laws of Punishment and Women's Rights are Changeable]’. http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=3685.
40. H.Y. Eshkevari, Taʿamolāt tanhāyee: Dibācheh-i bar Hermenutik [Some Thoughts in Loneliness: Studies on Hermeneutics] (Tehran: Sharabi Publication, 2003), p.72.
41. Cited in: Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution, p.91.
42. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), p.216.
43. Cited in: Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution, p.93.
44. Cited in: Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, ‘Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality, Siyasat-Zadegi and (A)political Self-Improvement’, p.290.
45. Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori, p.403; like Soroush, Malekian distinguishes between religion in itself and religious knowledge. For details, see M. Malekian, Din, Manaviyat va Roshanfekri-dini: Seh goftogu ba Mostafa Malekian [Religion, Spirituality and Religious Intellectualism: Three Conversations with Mostafa Malekian] (Tehran: Nashr-e payan, 2010), p.48.
46. Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (1), p.280; Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori, p.321.
47. M. Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (2), in Sonnat va sekuralism (Tehran: Serat Publication, 2009), p.339; this approach to spirituality echoes some aspects of modern Christian theology, rooted in the writings of Schleiermacher, in which the essence of religion is located in ‘feeling’ or ‘experiencing’ the transcendent.
48. Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori, pp.195, 277.
49. Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (1), p.270.
50. Ibid., p.269.
51. Ibid., p.278.
52. It is beyond the scope of this article to explore in depth Malekian's understanding of spirituality. Broadly though, spirituality is considered by Malekian as either forming the essence or kernel of religion or as a ‘form of rational religion’ (Malekian, Maʿnaviyat: Gohar-e adiyan (1), p.273). Spirituality could also be considered as beyond religions, however, since Malekian states that ‘spiritual life does not necessarily mean belonging to one of the institutionalized historic religions. Instead, it means having an outlook on world and humanity which leads to achieving peace, joy and hope’ (Malekian, Rahi beh raha'i, p.376); therefore, the term spirituality as used by Malekian is different from Kadivar's use of the term. In the course of this article, when we speak of spirituality in Malekian's writings, we refer to the former understanding of spirituality rather than the latter understanding.
53. Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, ‘Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality, Siyasat-Zadegi and (A)political Self-Improvement’, p.294.
54. Malekian, Rahi beh raha'i, p.302.
55. Ibid., p.299.
56. Ibid., p.305.
57. Ibid., p.465.
58. M. Kadivar, Human Rights and Intellectual Islam in Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen, & Christian Moe (eds.), New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2009), p.65.
59. Kadivar, Haq al-nās, pp.141–2.
60. Kadivar, Haq al-nās, p.40.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., p.31.
63. For details, see Matsunaga, ‘Human Rights and New Jurisprudence in Mohsen Kadivar’, pp.375–6.
64. Kadivar, Haq al-nās, p.16.
65. Kadivar, Haq al-nās, pp.290–1, 145–6.
66. Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, p.220.
67. Kadivar, Haq al-nās, p.30.
68. Cited in Matsunaga, ‘Human Rights and New Jurisprudence in Mohsen Kadivar’, p.373.
69. Eshkevari, Islamic Democratic Government, pp.79–80; H.Y. Eshkevari, Women's Rights and the Women's Movement in Z. Mir-Hosseini and R. Tapper (eds.), Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2006), p.164.
70. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, p.164.
71. Ibid.
72. H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Fiqh, Ekhtelafat Fiqhi va Taqirpaziri-ye Ahkām [Jurisprudence, Differences on Jurisprudence and the Changeability of Precepts]’. http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=1322; Eshkevari, Taʿamolāt tanhāyee, p.72.
73. According to Eshkevari, many Muslims of the first centuries of Islam realized that some social provisions of the Quran or sunna of the Prophet could not be implemented in all times and places. See Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq va Manzelat-e Zan dar islam-e No-andishaneh [The Rights and Positions of Women in New Islamic Thinking]’. http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=1678.
74. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, p.168.
75. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq va Manzelat-e Zan dar islam-e No-andishaneh’.
76. For further examination of this issue in Eshkevari's writings, see N. Ghobadzadeh, Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State (London: Routledge, 2015), p.106.
77. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, pp.167–8.
78. H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Faithful Life in an Urfi State’, trans. Mojtaba Mahdavi and Siavash Saffari, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol.31, No.1 (2011), p.24.
79. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq va Manzelat-e Zan dar islam-e No-andishaneh’.
80. H.Y. Eshkevari, ‘Form and Content in Democracy and Elections’, Journal of Democracy Vol.11, No.4 (2000), p.140.
81. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq-e Bashar va Ahkam-e ejtemayi-e Islam’.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid.
84. Eshkevari, ‘Tamami-ye Ahkam-e ejtemayi-e islam manand-e Diyat va qavanin-e Keyfari va Hoquq-e Zan Taqir-pazitand’.
85. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq-e Bashar va Ahkam-e ejtemayi-e Islam’.
86. Malekian, Moshtaqi va mahjoori, pp.326–7.
87. Ibid., pp.334–5.
88. Ibid., p.369.
89. Kadivar, Haq al-nāss, p.303.
90. Ibid., p.307.
91. Ibid., pp.290–1.
92. Cited in: N. Ghobadzadeh, ‘Islamic Reformation Discourses Popular Sovereignty and Religious Secularization in Iran’, Democratization Vol.19, No.2 (2012), p.338.
93. For details, see Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, pp.219–20; Hunter, ‘Islamic Reformist Discourse in Iran: Proponents and Prospects’, p.68.
94. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, pp.169–70.
95. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq va Manzelat-e Zan dar islam-e No-andishaneh’.
96. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, p.169; see also: Eshkevari, ‘Fiqh, Ekhtelafat Fiqhi va Taqirpaziri-ye Ahkām’.
97. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, p.169.
98. Eshkevari, ‘Faithful Life in an Urfi State’, p.24.
99. Eshkevari, Islamic Democratic Government, p.87.
100. Eshkevari, ‘Hoquq va Manzelat-e Zan dar islam-e No-andishaneh’.
101. Eshkevari, ‘Women's Rights and the Women's Movement’, pp.98–9.
102. For example, Mesbah Yazdi states that ‘Islam's position concerning politics is that all…issues related to government must be traced to Revelation and the commands of the Almighty’. Kamrava, Iran's Intellectual Revolution, p.96.
103. For such ideas, see Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, pp.175–9.