Islam and Dissent in Postrevolutionary Iran Abdolkarim Soroush, Religious Politics and Democratic Reform

by Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz

• ISBN13: 9781845118792
• ISBN10: 1845118790
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-15
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

The Iranian revolution of 1979 overhauled not only the foundations of Iranian society, religion and politics, but also our understanding of the role of religion in modern government. Here Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi takes us on an enlightening journey, showing that the revolution unintentionally opened up the public sphere to competing interpretations of Islam. Far from being the exclusive preserve of high-ranking seminarians as before, in contemporary Iran lay theologians, intellectuals, lawyers and social activists are active and influential interlocutors in debates on the meaning of Islam. A key figure is philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush, a leading force behind Iran's pro-democracy movement and vocal critic of the state. Through a close reading of Soroush's writings, and by tracing the links between Muslim intellectual critique and the realpolitik of postrevolutionary power struggles, Ghamari-Tabrizi offers nothing less than a pathbreaking reassessment of the Iranian revolution. With powerful insights, Islam and Dissent is essential for an understanding of the Muslim world today, as of the new relationships between religion, politics and democracy visible across the globe.

Author Biography

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi is Assistant Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in transnational and global histories in the Middle Eastern postcolonial context, and studies social movements and intellectual articulations of Islamic conceptions of modernity. He has published in varieties of academic journals such as International Sociology, International Review of Social History, Migration Review, Critique, and others.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ideological Certainties, Past and Present

Totality, Utopia, and Foundationalism

From Fairytales to Nightmares

The Topic of this Book

The Islamic Roots of Modernity and the Modern Roots Of Islamism

British Colonialism in India and the Islamic Modernism of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897)

Al-Ikhw?n al-Muslimun: The Birth of Political Islam

Abul Ala Maududi (1903-1979): The Islamic State in Pakistan

Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966): The Establishment of the State of Israel

The Arab-Israeli War of 1967 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979

Legitimizing the Postrevolutionary Regime and the Genesis of the new constitution

The Genesis of the Constitution and Its Ratification

The Politics of the Assembly of Experts & the Final Draft of the Constitution

Vel?yat-e Faqih and the Right of Self-Determination

Sources of Legitimacy: The Faqih Meets Rousseau and Mao

National Interests and the Interests of the Ummah

Legislating and Ijtihad, the Constitution versus the Shari`ah

The Limits and boundaries of freedom and democracy

The Constitutional Referendum

From Sacralizing the State to Secularizing the Fiqh

Abdolkarim Soroush, the Intellectual Voice of the Islamic Republic

Soroush, Marxists, and the "Eclectics"

Anthropomorphism, Scientism and Historicism

Elitist Totalitarianism

Soroush and the Cultural Revolution

Soroush and the Cultural Revolution Council (CRC)I

Soroush, the Purged President, and the Obliterated Left

From The Reign Of Terror To Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

Factions Within

Things Fall Apart

Maslahat over Feq?hat

Amending the Constitution: The Institutionalization of the Absolute Rule of the Faqih

From Liberation Theology To State Ideology Ali Shari`Ati And The Emergence Of New Religious Intellectuals

Islam as Ideology

Shari`ati the Iranian Gramsci

Ummah, Imamate, and the Ideological Society

The West and Gharbzadegi

The Silence Of The Shari`Ah: Soroush And The Theological Foundations Of Political Reform

Soroush and the Critique of Islam as State Ideology

The Return from Ideology to Religion

The Theory of Shari`at-e S?met, The Silent Shari`ah

History, Culture, and Religious Knowledge

Secularism, Democracy, and the Religious State

Conceptions of Science and Technology

On Westoxication (Gharbzadegi)

The Return to "Authentic Self"

Responses: From Prodigy to Pariah

Islam, Democracy And Religious Pluralism

Straight Paths and Religious Pluralism

Reason and Religion

The Eternity of the Qur'an

The Critics: Relativism, Secularism, and Democracy

Soroush Versus Soroush

Whither Soroush?

Conclusion: Social Change And The Symbolic Universe Of Religion

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.