Islamic Secularism and the Question of Freedom in Iran

Abstract

My research deals with the question of ‘freedom’ in Iran and the appropriation of ‘liberal’ ideas by influential intellectuals with an Islamic persuasion. At the same time, I am conceptualising the term ‘Islamic secularism’ with a particular emphasis on the spectre of democracy in Iran. I argue that Iranian thinkers, whose philosophical nodal point continues to be a modernistic interpretation of Islam (or Islamism), have struggled to formulate a theory that would transcend the confines of the revolution and satisfy the demands for pluralism and liberty put forward during several protests in Iran and, of course, during the 2011 Arab revolts.

Keywords:

• Democracy
• Iran
• Islam
• Islamic philosophy
• Mohsen Kadivar
• liberalism
• political theory
• secularism
• Abdolkarim Soroush

Notes

1. See further A. Adib-Moghaddam. (2006) The pluralistic momentum in Iran and the future of the reform movement, Third World Quarterly, 26(6), pp. 665-674.

2. On the history of democracy in Iran, see F. Azimi. (2010) The quest for democracy in Iran: A century of struggle against authoritarian rule (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

3. I have expressed this on the eve of the 36^th anniversary of the revolution in an interview with Tehran Times, ‘Iranians rose against Shah to gain freedom’, 10^t February 2015; available at: http://www.tehrantimes.com/component/content/article/93-interviews/121728-iranians-rose-against-shah-to-gain-freedom-justice-scholar, accessed 11 March 2015.

4. See further A. Adib-Moghaddam. (2002) Global Intifadah? September 11^th and the struggle within Islam, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 15(3), pp. 203-216.

5. For a recent examination of the dialectic between Islam and liberalism see J. Massad. (2015) Islam in Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). For western misperceptions see also the introduction to A. Adib-Moghaddam. (2013) On the Arab revolts and the Iranian Revolution: Power and resistance today (New York: Bloomsbury).

6. See further Mansoor Moaddel. (1992) Shi'i Political Discourse and Class Mobilization in the Tobacco Movement of 1890-1892, Sociological Forum, 7(3), pp. 447-468.

7. For a recent exception see Umar Ryad. (2014) Anti-imperialism and the pan-Islamic movement, in David Motadel, Islam and the European Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press). pp. 131-149.

8. M.-H. Jamshidi (ed.) (2005) Andisheh-e siasi-ye Imam Khomeini [Political thought of Imam Khomeini] (Tehran: Pajoheshkade-ye Imam Khomeini vaenghelabislami, 1384), pp. 245, 246 (author’s translations).

9. See further A. Adib-Moghaddam (ed.) (2014) A critical introduction to Khomeini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

10. M. Bazargan. (1998) Religion and Liberty, in: C. Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam: A sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 77.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid, p. 79.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid, p. 81.

15. Ibid, p. 84.

16. Ayatollah M. Taleqani. (2007) ‘The characteristics of Islamic Economics’, in J. J. Donohue and J. L. Esposito (eds.), Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 233.

17. Ibid, p. 233.

18. M. Taleqani. Taleqani’s last sermon, in Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam, p. 47.

19. Ibid, p. 47.

20. On Iran’s foreign policy see A. Adib-Moghaddam. Islamic Utopian Romanticism and the Foreign Policy Culture of Iran, Middle East Critique, 14(3), pp. 203-216. For the impact on the region see A. Adib-Moghaddam. (2006) The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A cultural genealogy (London: Routledge).

21. Khomeini’s grip appears at its tightest, The New York Times, 21 November 1982.

22. For recent views on the spectre of dissidence in Iran see L. Stone (ed.) (2014) Iranian Identity and Cosmopolitanism: Spheres of belonging (New York: Bloomsbury).

23. A. Soroush, Sense and Nonsense: About the cultural revolution again, available at http://www.drsoroush.com/English/By_DrSoroush/sense&nonsense. html, accessed 11 February 2015.

24. Ibid.

25. A. Soroush. (2000) Islamic Revival and Reform: Theological Approaches, in M. Sadri and A. Sadri (eds & trans), Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam: Essential writings of Abdolkarim Soroush (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 33.

26. Ibid, p. 32.

27. Ibid, p. 37.

28. A. Souroush. The Idea of Democratic Religious Government, in Sadri and Sadri (eds, trans), Reason, Freedom and Democracy, p. 128.

29. Ibid, p. 129.

30. M. Kadivar, Freedom of religion and belief in Islam, in M. Kamrava (ed.) (2006) The new voices of Islam: Reforming Politics and Modernity (London: I. B. Tauris), p. 119.

31. Ibid, pp. 119-120.

32. Ibid, p. 120.

33. Bazargan, ‘Religion and Liberty’, in Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam, p. 83.

34. Kadivar, ‘Freedom of religion’, p. 120.

35. Kadivar, ‘Freedom of religion’ in Kamrava (ed.), The new voices, p. 142.

36. H. Y. Eshkevari, ‘God’s Uprooted Warriors’, Available at http://yousefieshkevari.com/?p=2103, accessed 12 January 2015.

37. Kadivar, ‘Freedom of religion’, The new voices, p. 120.

38. Soroush, Reason, Freedom and Democracy, p. 128.

39. Ibid, p. 128.

40. Bazargan, Religion and Liberty, in Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam, p. 83, emphasis added.

41. Ibid, p. 84.

42. A. Shariati, Humanity and Islam, in Kurzman (ed.), Liberal Islam, p. 193.

43. I. Sina. (1954) Fontessapientiae (uyun al-hikmah), A. Badawied (Cairo: No publisher), p. 16.

44. Quoted in R. Walzer. (1962) Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 26.