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ABSTRACT
The Iranian scholar Abdolkarim Soroush has recently developed an account of revelation referred to as the theory of Prophetic Dreams. This article seeks to analyse this theory and its relation to two earlier theories developed by him (that of the Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge and that of the Expansion of Prophetic Experience). In addition, it explores whether the theory of Prophetic Dreams has any roots in classical Islamic literature and the ideas of Muslim theologians, mystics and philosophers in the pre-modern era. Finally, it discusses the implications of Soroush’s theory of Prophetic Dreams for issues related to exegesis and theology, suggesting that it has an important bearing on Islamic theological discourses. The article aims to contribute to scholarly understanding of the development of Soroush’s thought by investigating aspects of his project that have not hitherto been explored.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Jahanbakhsh, Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism, 146.
2 See, for example, Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism, 225–31; Shahibzadeh, Islamism and Post-Islamism, 116–17.
3 Shahibzadeh, Islamism and Post-Islamism, 136.
4 See, for example, Dahlén, Islamic Law; Fletcher, ‘Methodology’; Kamrava, Iran’s Intellectual Revolution, 155–61; Ghamari-Tabrizi, Islam and Dissent; Amirpur, ‘Expansion of Prophetic Experience’; idem, New Thinking, 140–67; Hashas, ‘Abdolkarim Soroush’; Akbar, ‘Abdolkarim Soroush’s Approach’; Shadi, Philosophy of Religion.
5 Soroush, Reason, Freedom and Democracy, 31. By ‘religion’, Soroush refers to the sacred scripture – i.e. the Qur’an in the context of the Islamic tradition.
6 Soroush, Qabd va basṭ-e teʾorīk-e sharīʿat, 248.
7 Ibid., 167.
8 Ibid., 357.
9 Ibid., 359.
10 Ibid., 239–40.
11 Ibid., 220–1.
12 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 329.
13 Ibid., 324.
14 Ibid., 11–12.
15 Soroush, ‘Word of Muhammad’.
16 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 17.
17 Soroush, ‘Word of Muhammad’.
18 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 329.
19 Ibid., 137.
20 Soroush, ‘Word of Muhammad’.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 78, 300.
24 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 90–4.
25 Translations of all qur’anic passages are taken from Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an.
26 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 91.
27 Ibid., 92.
28 Ibid., 87.
29 Soroush, ‘Taʿbīr-e maʿād’.
30 Ibid.
31 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 88.
32 Ibid., 106.
33 Ibid., 108–9.
34 Ibid., 88.
35 Ibid., 113.
36 Ibid., 134–5.
37 Ibid., 140.
38 Ibid., 211.
39 Soroush, ‘Taʿbīr-e maʿād’.
40 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 211.
41 Ibid., 170.
42 Ibid., 110.
43 Ibid., 240.
44 Ibid., 222. For a similar conclusion, see Shabestari, ‘Qerāʾat-e nabavī az jahān’, although Shabestari does not arrive at such a conclusion through a theory of dreams. I have discussed Shabestari’s theory of revelation elsewhere. See, in particular, Akbar, ‘Towards a Humanistic Approach’; idem, ‘A Contemporary Muslim Scholar’s Approach’.
45 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 226–7.
46 Soroush, ‘Word of Muhammad’.
47 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 95.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., 96.
51 Ibid., 97.
52 Soroush, ‘Taʿbīr-e maʿād’.
53 Ibid.
54 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 220.
55 Ibid., 117.
56 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 1, Book 1, no. 3.
57 To mention a few cases in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: the Prophet is said to have travelled to the holy land (Jerusalem) in his dream (al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 2, Book 23, no. 468); when resting in the valley at Muarras in Dhul-Hulaifa, Muhammad was addressed in a dream: ‘You are verily in a blessed valley’ (ibid., Vol. 2, Book 26, no. 610); the Prophet dreamt of ‘moving a sword and its blade got broken’ – a dream that symbolized the Muslim defeat at the battle of Uhud (ibid., Vol. 4, Book 56, no. 818).
58 See Edgar, Dream in Islam, 9.
59 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 9, Book 87, no. 119.
60 Ibid., no. 116.
61 See Donaldson, Shi‘ite Religion, 129–41.
62 Sirriyeh, Dreams and Visions, xi.
63 Von Grunebaum, ‘Introduction’, 13.
64 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Vol. 1, Book 3, no. 110. In the Shīʿa tradition, visions of key figures such as ʿAlī and other Imams are considered to comprise true dreams. See Sindawi, ‘Image of Ali b. Abi Talib’, 187.
65 Al-Farrāʾ, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, 471.
66 Mahallati, ‘Significance of Dreams’, 156; Quinn, ‘Dreams of Shaykh Safi al-Din’.
67 Frankel, ‘Dream Accounts’.
68 See, for example, Corbin, ‘Dream’; Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 54; Katz, Dreams, 205–30; Ormsby, ‘Poor Man’s Prophecy’, 142–3.
69 Al-Ghazālī, Book of Fear and Hope, 73.
70 Al-Ghazālī, Freedom and Fulfillment, 96–7.
71 Al-Kindī was one of the first Muslim philosophers to have emphasized this theme. See al-Kindi, ‘Risāla’, 294–5.
72 Ormsby, ‘Poor Man’s Prophecy’, 149.
73 Al-Ghazālī, Jewels of the Qurʾan, 53.
74 Mahdi, Al-Farabi, 134.
75 Ibid.
76 Al-Fārābī, On the Perfect State, 225.
77 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 245.
78 Ibid., 105.
79 Ibid., 244.
80 Ibn ʿArabī, Bezels of Wisdom, 99.
81 Graham, Divine Word, 26.
82 Madigan, Qurʾân’s Self-Image, 141.
83 Kahana-Smilansky, ‘Self-Reflection’, 116.
84 Ibid.
85 Soroush, ‘Islam, Revelation and Prophethood’.
86 Ibid.
87 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 19.
88 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 119.
89 Ibid., 120.
90 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 332.
91 Ibid., 293.
92 Ibid., 63–91.
93 Soroush, ‘Taʿbīr-e maʿād’.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 220.
97 Ibid., 250–1.
98 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 77.
99 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 179.
100 Ibid., 180.
101 Ibid., 109.
102 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 329.
103 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 226.
104 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 16.
105 Soroush explains that his theory of revelation does not seek to explain how Muhammad was inspired by God, nor does it seek to explore the metaphysical nature of revelation or even its validity. This means that his main concern is to take a phenomenological approach to revelation, rather than an ontological approach (Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 104).
106 Ibid., 282. Soroush uses this approach to argue that the fatwas of fuqahāʾ represent certain pre-understandings rooted in the desires and life experiences of the person who pronounces the fatwa: ‘The fatwa of an Arab takes on the hue of Arab culture, and the fatwa of a Persian takes on the hue of Persian culture. The fatwa of a village dweller takes on the hue and odour of a village, and the fatwa of a town inhabitant takes on the taste of his town’ (Soroush, Qabd va basṭ-e teʾorīk-e sharīʿat, 244).
107 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 283.
108 Ibid.
109 Soroush, Qabd va basṭ-e teʾorīk-e sharīʿat, 164–70.
110 Ibid., 503.
111 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 283.
112 Ibid., 368–70.
113 Ibid., 370.
114 Ibid., 300–1.
115 Ibid., 241–2.
116 See Salama, The Qurʾān, 53.
117 Haddad, Contemporary Islam, 47.
118 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 300.
119 Ibid., 242–3.
120 Ibid., 241.
121 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 78.
122 Soroush, ‘Word of Muhammad’.
123 Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-najāt, 326.
124 Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 243.
125 Ibid., 216.
126 Soroush, Expansion of Prophetic Experience, 16.
127 Ibid., 177.
128 Soroush, ‘Ruʾyāhā-ye rasūlāneh’.
129 Ibid.
130 Mirdamadi, ‘Soroush’s Theory’, 162.
131 Having said this, as a theist philosopher and a devout Muslim, Soroush believes that, although God is beyond human understanding, He is not separable from natural phenomena, meaning that the creation of heaven and earth, the alternation of night and day, sending down rain from the heavens, and the direction of the winds and the clouds all represent God’s actions in the world (Soroush, Kalām-e Muhammad, 110). This means that Soroush himself praises Muhammad’s experience of God, according to which all phenomena in the world are attributed to God.
132 As explained, Soroush historicizes religious knowledge in the sense that he argues that all areas of religious knowledge are comprised of human knowledge, and refuses to attribute any divine characteristics to them. For Soroush, ‘religious knowledge is human knowledge in the sense that it has been subjected to human norms’, such as human desires, pre-understandings and prejudices (Soroush, Qabd va basṭ-e teʾorīk-e sharīʿat, 106).
133 Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives, 61–96.