Ali Akbar Ahmadi Aframjani's Article 'Theology of Chaos', Part One

Theology of Chaos

Observations on Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush's "Theory of the Mighty Prophet," Part One

Ali Akbar Ahmadi Aframjani

Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush's lecture titled "Religion and Power," delivered over two sessions in January 2021 (lecture one and two), is significant in the history of contemporary Islamic studies. The present article first expounds the theory put forward in that lecture (the theory of the Mighty Prophet) and then offers some observations.

At the beginning of his lecture, Soroush reminds us that what he has presented under the title "Religion and Power" over the past year and a half is entirely on a different path from his previous discussions. Soroush then attempts to explain the intellectual trajectory and the manner of the birth and formation of this new discussion and its completely different path, and through a kind of genealogy (Genealogy), he informs the audience of how his new theory emerged.

According to his account, the articles of "The Contraction and Expansion of Sharia" taught that religious knowledge is born alongside other forms of knowledge and in exchange with them, evolving and growing in step with human and extra-religious knowledge, based on a specific mechanism, and therefore should not be considered an independent form of knowledge. However, in Soroush's view, he was oblivious at that time to the fact that the growth of religious knowledge, and indeed religion itself, occurs not merely alongside human knowledge but also alongside power (and particularly political power).

According to Soroush's account, the starting point of his attention to the relationship between religious knowledge—and indeed religion—and power was in 2007, when, while reading a paper at a Rumi studies seminar in Turkey, he noted: The Quran is fundamentally a book of fear and awe, and early Islam lacked something, a dimension called love and affection. In fact, before the advent of love-based Sufism, Islam was a bird that flew with one wing (fear and awe), and this caused its fall and decline. But Sufism, by leaving behind its ascetic-fearful phase (which reaches its peak in Ghazali) and entering a period that began with Abu Sa'id Abu'l-Khayr and reached a particular transcendence (i.e., love-based Sufism) in Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi, provides another wing for Islam.

In Soroush's view, the Quran strongly possessed the wing of fear and awe and was somewhat lacking in the aspect of love and affection, and it was the Sufis, and especially our Khorasani Sufism, who vigorously introduced the concept of love and a loving relationship with God, setting a blessed current flowing in the bed of Islamic religion, culture, and civilization. The Quran was a book of awe, while the Masnavi and the Divan of Shams were books of love; whereas in the Quran, God is more of a relatively stern and harsh lord before whom one must prostrate, sanctify, and constantly fear His punishment, wrath, and torture (the very God who, on the Day of Judgment, will severely cast sinful servants into torment), the Sufis were the discoverers of God's beauty; a beauty before which they could do nothing but love.

For the Prophet, it seems, for instance, that the merciful and compassionate face of God had not ascended and risen to the concept of "love." Although it is said that His mercy encompasses all things and His wrath is under the shadow and a subset of His mercy, "love" has not been emphasized as it should have been.

The Prophet seems to have had a more fear-based experience of God. God would so fill his being that he became full of awe; he saw and knew God as a tremendous mystery (Divine Majesty), and according to that image of God, he conveyed the message that if a person steps out of line, disregards God, and disobeys the command of His Prophet, they will be dealing with the angels of punishment and will suffer a harsh and ruinous fate.

But love-based Sufism added to the prophetic experience, and the Sufis said that they too receive revelation; a revelation they considered no less than the Prophet's revelation. Rumi attributes all the qualities ascribed to the Quran to his own Masnavi. The mystics were the discoverers of God as an attractive mystery (Divine Beauty)...

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Theology of Chaos; Observations on Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush's 'The Mighty Prophet Theory', Part One

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