Hassan Mohaddesi's article “Packaging Religion or Deconstructing Religion: The Kadivar–Soroush Dispute”

Packaging Religion or Deconstructing Religion: The Kadivar–Soroush Dispute

Hassan Mohaddesi Gilvaei[1]

The history of religion is a complex history. The more we look into it and study it, the more we encounter new points. One of the concepts that can reveal a part of this history to us is the concept of packaging religion[2] and packaged religion[3]. In the literature of the sociology of religion, packaged religion is often contrasted with lived religion[4], and the packaged religion/lived religion dichotomy is formulated (Bouma, 2018). However, firstly, these two are not necessarily in opposition and can exist simultaneously, and secondly, they do not exist on the same level of reality, because one pertains to religious living and the other pertains to the organization and formulation of religion. In the Persian language, we correctly separate these two levels and discuss lived religion under "religiosity," distinguishing it from "religion." Therefore, I place packaged religion in contrast to pre-packaged religion, and by these two concepts, I mean two different historical stages of the life of a religion. For example, we can speak of packaged Islam and pre-packaged Islam. Let me first speak of pre-packaged religion.

Pre-packaged Religion

Religions usually begin with the inner and esoteric experience of their founder, and then the founder presents an interpretation and explanation of their experience to those around them and acquaintances, involving them in their experience as well. In this way, a group becomes involved in a religious experience and its related interpretation and explanation, and the initial religious group is formed. This may lead to a religious movement or uprising, creating a stir and a renaissance in the community or society in question, and the religion in question enters the movement phase, provoking reactions and opposition. If this religious movement endures and persists and overcomes obstacles, its phase of institutionalization begins. In this phase, the nascent religion is gradually consolidated, becomes a social power, gains a firm foothold, acquires more followers, and begins to expand. Rules and regulations are established for the religious group, and religious rituals and practices are regulated and codified in a new way. Gradually, a scripture and a history are compiled for the religion, and the issue of entering and leaving the religious group becomes more regulated, moving away from the initial lack of rules and the initial secrecy. It is in the phase of the institutionalization of religion that specific religious functionaries gradually take shape and play the role of guardians and custodians of the religious community and the religion.

The packaging of religion begins in this very phase. In other words, individuals emerge who introduce the main components and pillars of the religion to others. Thus, the question of the "criterion of religiosity" (for example, "the criterion of being a Muslim") and the question of the "components of religion" (for example, "the components of Islam") or the "essentials of religion" (for example, "the essentials of Islam") is a hermeneutic or interpretive matter that takes shape in the post-founder era and has a theological or doctrinal foundation. The further believers within a religious tradition move away from the history of the religion's origin, the more seriously this question is raised. In other words, in the era of the Prophet or founder himself, his followers lived religiously and, in the words of Gary D. Bouma, had a lived religion and were immersed in their religiosity as a living matter. Consequently, the question of the criterion of religiosity and the question of the pillars or essentials of religion as an epistemic matter or an obligation that must be pondered was never raised. In other words, for them, religion was what they were living. Therefore, they could not stand outside it, reflect upon it, and ask about its essentials. Religion was alive and present in their states and actions.

Therefore, it seems that within a religious tradition this question is always a belated one, belonging to the followers of later centuries, and holds no relevance for the original followers. The original followers had a pre-theoretical engagement with their religion (for instance, Islam, Christianity, or any other religion), not a theoretical one. The followers of later centuries, living in the post-founder or post-prophet era, have a theoretical engagement with their religion and inquire about the nature of their religion. The answer to this question has inevitably led to the construction of the “essence of religion,” or the “necessities of religion,” or the “pillars of religion.” Therefore, if we carefully examine the history of any religion, we will find that the idea of the “essence of religion” or the “necessities of religion” is a belated matter, a theological and theoretical construct, and such a concept never existed in the mind and language of the founder or prophet and their early followers. This stage in the history of a religion can be called the stage of pre-packaged religion. At this stage, religious orthodoxy has not yet emerged. This stage in the history of a religion is the pre-orthodoxy stage. It is after this that religious orthodoxy arrives. When the stage of religious orthodoxy begins and the religious functionaries of the time answer the question of what the correct beliefs in this religion are, then the seed of a new form of religious conflict is sown within that religious tradition.

In fact, it is from here that the seed of a kind of strife and conflict is sown within the religious community. Contrary to what sociologists like Durkheim claimed—that religion creates social cohesion—religion within a single, unified religious community may create cohesion at a particular juncture in history, but the potential conflict-generating capacity of religion is far greater than its cohesion-generating capacity. The dispute over packaging is one of the types of social conflicts that religion creates: How should religion be packaged? What is the desirable packaging? Who is qualified to package religion?

It is in such a discussion that it is sometimes said that the founder of the religion himself packaged the religion, or that God inspired it to him in a packaged form. But the founder or prophet is never concerned with determining the constituent components of his religion, and such a thought does not occur to anyone at the beginning of the religion and during the religious movement phase. This is exactly like us being in the middle of cooking or eating food and then asking ourselves what food is and what its constituent components are. Thus, with the discussion of packaging religion, the era of orthodoxy formation in religion arrives. Religion passes through its stage of fluidity in faith and thought, and in this stage, the religious tradition solidifies its social foundations.

It is also sometimes said that religion has found external realization, and it is the believers steadfast in religion and religiosity who can discover the pillars and principles of the religion. They possess special knowledge, and only they are qualified to package religion. Not everyone is qualified to package religion, and packaging religion is a specialized matter. In this way, a form of religious exclusivism concerning the packaging of religion emerges.

Competition over the Packaging of Religion in the Religious Domain

But packaging religion is not enough; rather, every type of religious packaging needs legitimacy and credibility. From here, competition over the packaging of religion and packaged religions takes shape. Within a single tradition, various religious communities emerge that diverge from one another, each creating its own specific religious intersubjectivity and having its own religious functionaries. As a result, within a single religious tradition, various types of religious packaging take shape, competition between them begins, sometimes leading to bloody conflicts and becoming the source of major religious conflicts.

Packaging religion has several major social functions: first, it is used for the rites of initiation and the entry of a newcomer into the religion. Henceforth, anyone who wishes to enter the new religion must be taught the pillars of the religion. At the beginning of a religious movement, entry into the religion lacks such instruction, and there is no specific prerequisite for entry, apart from heartfelt faith and inner commitment to the new faith movement. But gradually, entry into and exit from the religion become regulated, and norms are formed for them. Another social function of packaging religion is boundary-drawing, boundary-setting, and othering. Whoever does not accept these pillars of the religion is “not one of us.” They are a “heretic,” “deviant,” “revisionist,” and, in short, problematic.

In these packaging processes, the interests, inclinations, and positions of the individuals doing the packaging also share and play a role. For example, in the history of Islam, various forms of packaging Islam have emerged. Abdullah ibn Umar, the son of the second caliph, who refrained from participating in the Muslims' wars after the assassination of the third caliph, presented a packaging of the pillars of religion in which jihad was omitted; whereas in other packagings by early Muslims, with reference to sayings and hadiths of the Prophet of Islam, jihad was always considered one of the main elements of Islam. According to the packaging of Abdullah ibn Umar[5], Islam has five main pillars or components: faith in God and the Messenger, the five daily prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadan, payment of zakat, and Hajj[6] (Ibn Kathir, vol. 1, n.d.: 526)

In the history of Islam, there have been so many of these kinds of religious packagings that numerous hadiths have been mentioned about them, and this collection of hadiths has been called the “Hadiths of Buni al-Islam” (The Foundations of Islam). These are hadiths that state the bases, pillars, or components of Islam are these things, and the edifice of Islam is “founded” upon them. The interesting point in studying these packagings is the serious differences in the mention of the pillars and components of Islam within them. Some have spoken of two pillars, some of three, some of four, some of five, some of six, and recently some of ten pillars for Islam. This difference in identifying the pillars of religion indicates that, firstly, contrary to the claims of the packagers, the subject under discussion lacks an objective existence, and we are faced with an intersubjective phenomenon, not an objective one. Secondly, the epistemological system, doctrinal attachments, and the positions and interests of the individuals doing the packaging could have been involved in the quality of the packaging. Thirdly, consensus on a specific packaging depended entirely on the shared intersubjective world of the believers (religious intersubjectivity) as well as the credibility, influence, and authority of the packaging person or persons and their defenders. Fourthly, a final packaging is never realized within a religious tradition, and the lifespan of packagings depends on the stability of religious intersubjectivity. Whenever a rift or fissure appears in the shared intersubjective world of the believers of a specific religious community, one can expect that doubt and skepticism will be cast upon the consensual packaging, and a new packaging of religion will be born.

The Conflict Between Two Packagings of Islam in Contemporary Iran: “Compassionate Islam” versus “Pure Islam”

With these theoretical explanations, we can now give an example of the packaging of religion in contemporary Iran and the competition among the agents and proponents of these religious packages. In contemporary Iran, under the influence of modernity and new social and intellectual conditions, the necessity of presenting a fresh image of Islam drew the attention of some Iranian thinkers. We can trace the roots of this thought back to before the Constitutional Movement, but in the Constitutional Revolution, two different images of Islam confronted each other practically and theoretically, and the opposition between these two different types of Islam has continued to this day, and after the establishment of a religious government in the wake of the 1979 Revolution and its performance, it has even become more serious. Following the fundamental critiques by those known as “religious intellectuals” (figures such as Muhammad Iqbal Lahori, Ali Shariati, Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, and for a period, Mostafa Malekian and some others), religious forces in the seminary were influenced, and gradually, within these forces, individuals emerged who called themselves “religious neo-thinkers” and gained greater social and cultural presence in the socio-political atmosphere after the 2nd of Khordad 1376 (May 23, 1997). This group of religious forces, who mainly had a seminary background and some of whose most important members were prominent students of Ayatollah Montazeri, endeavored, alongside others and following in their footsteps, to present a new Islam to Iranian society and even Persian-speaking believers, naming it “Compassionate Islam” (Islam-e Rahmani); this was during a period when figures like Ayatollah Montazeri were engaging in dialogue and responding to the critiques of our country’s prominent religious thinker, Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush.

Dr. Mohsen Kadivar, who is among the students of Ayatollah Montazeri, has been one of the cultivators and promoters of the idea of “Compassionate Islam” in recent decades. He has defended this type of Islam in numerous writings. Initially, Kadivar defends “Compassionate Islam” as a kind of “Islamic reading,” calls his view on it “personal,” and explicitly states that he “represents no one”:

“The term Compassionate Islam has enjoyed some currency for a while. The author used this term years ago to distinguish between different Islamic readings. In the past year, this combination has been seen abundantly among the supporters, leaders, and companions of the Green Movement. It seems a conceptual analysis of ‘Compassionate Islam’ is necessary. It is clear that this conceptual analysis is my personal understanding, and in this discussion, as in my previous discussions, I represent no one. I thank the critics and those with suggestions in advance. Compassionate Islam stands in opposition to Fascist Islam, Taliban Islam, Umayyad Islam, Black Islam, and ossified Islam. In this reading of Islam, nothing is removed from Islamic teachings; only some rulings and rituals that have been understood outside their context and detached from the temporal and spatial conditions of the age of revelation, and as a result of this misunderstanding have distanced themselves from their compassionate essence, are corrected, and some rational rulings that are not incompatible with Islamic teachings are accepted” (Kadivar, 24 July 2010).

At this stage, Kadivar enumerates ten components for the theoretical formulation of Compassionate Islam and, in a very humble manner, introduces it as his personal understanding of Islam and “an understanding of Islam”:

“Compassionate Islam is an understanding of Islam in which the following ten components constitute its main structure: Divine Satisfaction, Justice, Rationality, Mercy, Ethics, Human Dignity and Rights, Freedom and Free Will, Science and Expertise, Democracy, and Objective Secularism. Presenting these ten components makes the recognition of Compassionate Islam more precise and its acceptance or rejection smoother” (ibid.).

But the intellectual and social trajectory of Kadivar and other proponents of the reading called “Compassionate Islam” continued, and they gradually moved from the claim of presenting “an understanding of Islam” and theoretical discussion about “Compassionate Islam” and the effort for its thoughtful formulation, to the stage of presenting a packaging of Islam itself. Eleven years later, Kadivar has distanced himself greatly from that humble position. This time, he presents his packaging of Compassionate Islam in opposition to other Islamic tendencies and tries to draw a precise boundary with other religious readings, specifically speaking of “Neo-Thinking Islam” as a distinct religious current and even naming some of its prominent members:

“The audience for this discussion are those who, believing in God, the Hereafter, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an as the Word of God, seek to deepen their religious faith and raise believing children in the modern world. In these sessions, the believing life will be expounded from the perspective of neo-rationalist Usuli Twelver Shi‘i Islam, which differs from traditional thought and religious intellectualism (the reform of religion itself). The believing life is a style of life in which faith plays a fundamental role. Life with faith and life without faith have two completely different meanings. In the believing life, nothing contrary to reason has any place, and all components of this life are either rational or supra-rational. Beliefs, ethical matters, and jurisprudential transactions are neither matters of blind obedience nor divinely ordained without rationale. The claim that living as a believer means living in blind obedience is nothing but a fallacy. Rationality supplies only one dimension of the believing life, not all of its dimensions. In the believing life, nothing anti-ethical is accepted. But being ethical is not equivalent to being a believer. Spirituality cannot replace faith or religious teachings. Spirituality in the contemporary world is a non-religious matter, and an alternative and rival to religion. Mysticism is one of the dimensions of Islam, but reducing multi-dimensional Islam to one-dimensional Sufism is a diminishment of Islam. Conventional jurisprudence and observing the duties of the lawful and unlawful is a small part of the believing life, not its entirety. The believing life is not synonymous or equivalent to the rational life, the ethical life, the spiritual life, the mystical life, or the jurisprudential life. The believing life, while ‘believing,’ is not merely law-abiding. None of these matters can replace the possession of all the virtues of rationality, ethics, spirituality (in the general sense), mysticism, and religious law; it has something more, and that is faith” (Kadivar, 1400 [2021]).

At this stage, Kadivar not only defines his audience but also engages in othering from several directions, separating the boundaries of “neo-rationalist Islam” from “traditional Islam,” religious intellectualism, mystical Islam, and from spiritualists in a completely normative and arbitrary manner, and introduces modern concepts into his so-called Rahmanian Islam: rationality and the absence of irrationality. Kadivar is, in fact, delineating a model for Muslim living, and in delineating this model, he arrives at a new form of packaging Islam and brings up the necessity of this packaging:

“In these discussions, the focus is on Islam, and its audience are Muslims. The first question that arises is: What is meant by Islam, the observance of which results in the believing life? The necessity of discussing this issue arises because efforts are seen that aim to render the hard core of Islam meaningless, in the name of Islam, of course, in an intellectual and modernist guise” (ibid.).

Thus, the so-called “neo-rationalist” operation of packaging Rahmanian Islam begins with attention to the social and intellectual conflicts of the day, and a new packaging of Islam takes shape in contemporary Iran: a packaging carried out with rigid boundary-drawing and which announces its identity in the religious social field with a reproachful and discrediting language toward the other who is called a “revisionist.” In this so-called “neo-rationalist” packaging, Islam has ten pillars or main components. In fact, Kadivar says: Islam is built upon ten:

“Faith in the One God (the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsisting, the Absolute Knower, the Absolute Powerful, the Most Merciful of the merciful, the Just, the Pardoning, the Forgiving), faith in the Resurrection or the Day of Judgment, faith in the Unseen, the prophethood of Muhammad ibn Abdullah (PBUH), revelation and the Qur’an, the authentic Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH), ethics, acts of worship (prayer, fasting, Hajj, and Zakat), quasi-rituals or divinely ordained matters (dependent on the commands and prohibitions of the Lawgiver) that are non-devotional, and the outlines of certain rulings and rules of transactions (relations between people)” (ibid.).

Of course, these items that Kadivar has packaged as the pillars of Islam, if compared with the packaging of the ancients, amount to far more than ten components! For example, four of the five pillars of Islam in the hadiths that state “Islam is built upon five” constitute the acts of worship intended by Kadivar, and he has gathered these four pillars together under the concept of acts of worship and counted them as one pillar, and this, of course, is presumably among the exigencies and “revisions” of “neo-rationalism”:

«حَدَّثَنِی اَلْحُسَیْنُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ اَلْأَشْعَرِیُّ عَنْ مُعَلَّى بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ اَلزِّیَادِیِّ عَنِ اَلْحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِیٍّ اَلْوَشَّاءِ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا أَبَانُ بْنُ عُثْمَانَ عَنْ فُضَیْلٍ عَنْ أَبِی حَمْزَهَ عَنْ أَبِی جَعْفَرٍ عَلَیْهِ اَلسَّلاَمُ قَالَ:  بُنِیَ اَلْإِسْلاَمُ عَلَى خَمْسٍ عَلَى اَلصَّلاَهِ وَ اَلزَّکَاهِ وَ اَلصَّوْمِ وَ اَلْحَجِّ وَ اَلْوَلاَیَهِ وَ لَمْ یُنَادَ بِشَیْءٍ کَمَا نُودِیَ بِالْوَلاَیَهِ» (کافی، ج ۲، ص ۱۸).

And of course, in Kadivar's

«نواندیشان دینی» در ایران معاصر، کسانی چون محسن کدیور و ابوالقاسم فنائی، بیش از آن‌که خود را در برابر طرف‌داران و مدافعان «اسلام ناب» قرار دهند، خود را در برابر روشن‌فکران دینی نظیر عبدالکریم سروش و محمدمجتهد شبستری قرار می‌دهند. به‌نظر می‌رسد گروه نخست به‌خاطر وابسته‌گی‌شان به نظام سیاسی، فاقد اعتبار اجتماعی و معرفتی هستند، اما گروه دوم واجد اعتبار و منزلت بالاتری هستند. هم‌چنین، به نظر می‌رسد «نواندیشان دینی» بیش‌ترین خطر را از جانب اینان احساس می‌کنند و از این رو، اقدام به مرزکشی و غیریّت‌سازی‌ شدید علیه «روشن‌فکران دینی» کرده اند. ریشه‌ی این احساس خطر شدید کجا قرار دارد؟ پاسخ به این پرسش نیازمند طرح برخی مقدمات است.

الف) تقابل مواجهه‌ی ترمیم‌گرایانه و بازسازی‌گرایانه با میراث اسلامی

در جاهای دیگری گفته‌ام که می‌توان به اعتبار نوع مواجهه‌ی صاحب‌نظران مسلمان با میراث اسلامی در جهان مدرن، از سه گرایش دینی‌ واجد بدنه‌ی اجتماعی سخن گفت:‌ محافظت‌گرایی، ترمیم‌گرایی، و بازسازی‌گرایی. محافظت‌گرایان می‌خواهند کل ساختمان دین را به‌همان نحوی که به ما رسیده حفظ کنند، ترمیم‌گرایان می‌خواهند آن را ترمیم کنند، و بازسازی‌گرایان می‌خواهند آن را فرو بریزند و از نوع بازسازی کنند. محافظت‌گرایان از ارتدوکسی‌ اسلامی دفاع می‌کنند. ترمیم‌گرایان نوارتدوکسی پدید می‌آورند. اما بازسازی‌گرایان ما را به پیشاارتدوکسی می‌خوانند. دو گروه نخست (محافظت‌گرایان و ترمیم‌گرایان) عمدتاً تربیت حوزوی دارند و متأثر از تفکر دینی‌ سنّتی‌اند و گروه سوم به‌رغم آشنایی با تفکر دینی‌ حوزوی، عمدتاً تربیت و اندیشه‌ی غیرحوزوی دارند (نظیر اقبال لاهوری، شریعتی، سروش، و مجتهدشبستری) و بیش‌تر متأثر از تفکّر مدرن هستند تا تفکر دینی‌ سنّتی. بعد از انقلاب ۱۳۵۷ و به‌ویژه بعد از دهه‌ی شصت خورشیدی و تحت تجربه‌ی حکومت دینی، بازسازی‌گرایان دریافتند که لازمه‌ی بازسازی دین، واسازی‌ آن است و ترمیم‌گرایان دریافتند که می‌بایست به‌نحو رادیکال‌تری به ترمیم دین بپردازند و شیوه‌ی ترمیم‌گری‌ی مرتضی مطهّری و سیدمحمد بهشتی و سیدموسی صدر و امثالهم کافی نیست. ترمیم‌گرایان چه قبل از انقلاب و چه پس از آن به‌شدّت متأثر و وام‌دار بازسازی‌گرایان دینی بوده‌اند (محدثی، ۱۳۸۱، و ۱۳۹۶).

اما به‌نظر می‌رسد «نواندیشان دینی» یا همان ترمیم‌گرایان جدید (امثال محسن کدیور، ابوالقاسم فنائی، و عبدالعلی‌ بازرگان) از برخی جهات ناتوان از فهم و تبیین پروژه‌ی فکری «روشن‌فکران دینی» هستند. البته آن‌ها واگرایی‌ قابل توجهی را با آنان درک می‌کنند و به همین دلیل برخی از آنان به چنین مقابله‌ای دست زده‌اند. «نواندیشان دینی» در درون نوارتدوکسی‌ اسلامی قرار می‌گیرند، در حالی که «روشن‌فکران دینی» از همه‌ی این انواع ارتدوکسی بیرون زده‌اند و عناصر سازنده‌ی آنها را مورد نقد بنیادی قرار داده‌اند. این نکته البته مورد توجه «نواندیشان دینی» بوده است:

«جریان اسلام نواندیش هم که در زمان اصلاحات سیاسی سکاندار اندیشه پیروز کشور بود، بعد از حذف آنها به‌تدریج دستخوش دگردیسی شد. بخشی از روشنفکران دینی شکست‌های سیاسی را معلول عواملی ذاتی در اسلام دانسته برای حل مشکلات سیاسی مشغول دستکاری در وحی، وثاقت قرآن، نفی حجیت معرفت‌شناختی آن، زمینی کردن کلام الهی و بشری دانستن قرآن شدند. این افکار به شدت غیرارتدوکس مورد قبول بخش قابل توجهی از مسلمانان نواندیش واقع نشد، لذا در عمل جریان نوگرا و غیرسنتی به دو طیف مسلمانان نواندیش و مسلمانان تجدیدنظرطلب تقسیم شدند» (کدیور، ۱۴۰۰).

در این‌جا اگر از توصیف مُعوج و خودمدارانه‌ی محسن کدیور بگذریم (زیرا او به جای این‌که بگوید نواندیشان دینی که بسیار متأثّر از نتایج عمل‌کرد و تلاش‌ها و محصولات روشن‌فکری دینی هستند، از آنها به‌تدریج فاصله گرفته اند، تاریخ تحوّلات اندیشه‌ی اسلامی در ایران را وارونه گزارش می‌کند)، او به‌درستی از «افکار به شدت غیرارتدوکس مورد قبول بخش قابل توجهی از مسلمانان نواندیش» سخن می‌گوید؛ در واقع همان کسانی که تعلیم و تربیت حوزوی و سنّتی دارند و از آغاز با مقاصد «روشن‌فکران دینی» (که عمدتاً تعلیم و تربیت غیرحوزوی و مدرن دارند) در جهت بازسازی‌ی دین، واگرایی داشته اند.

Inevitably, the “new religious thinkers” have introduced a new kind of religious exclusivism under the banner of “Islamic new thinking”—the very stance that Motahhari and his ilk adopted toward Ali Shariati. Kadivar even uses the exact expressions Motahhari used about Shariati. Morteza Motahhari had deemed Shariati an “Islamizer,” and now Kadivar uses the same expression about religious intellectuals, and indeed, history repeats itself:

“From the perspective of new-thinking Muslims, the new products of religious intellectualism are Islamization, not Islamic studies and a revision of the pillars of Islam” (ibid.).

Inevitably, Kadivar and Fanaei proceed to discredit the epistemic standing of religious intellectuals. Kadivar, from the position of one who has attained the truth, writes: “It seems that the ears of revisionist Muslims are not receptive to the arguments and proofs of critics. No reasoned response to these criticisms is heard from them; the existing responses are merely an unacceptable justification” (ibid.). He also writes in an arrogant tone: “Some non-productive new thinkers are floundering between religious new thinking and religious revisionism” (ibid.). It is astonishing that he disparages intellectual dynamism and calls it “floundering”! Kadivar writes about religious intellectuals in a reproachful and dossier-building language:

“Some revisionist Muslims are intensely fearful of distinguishing their ranks from religious new thinking, because by stating the distinction, their revisionist and deconstructive approach is exposed, and for the time being, it is not in their market’s interest for it to come to light that their profession is the reformation of the religion itself (not the reformation of religious knowledge and practice), i.e., the reformation of the Book and the Sunnah itself, and presenting a narrative of Islam that bears no proportion to the Book and the Sunnah” (ibid.).

The term “deconstruction” is very important here, but Kadivar uses it not in its methodological sense, but as something equivalent to blasphemy and anti-religion, and as you can see, “deconstruction” in Kadivar’s writing is juxtaposed with “revisionism.” I will return to this term later in the discussion. But the efforts of the “new religious thinkers” to build credibility for themselves and discredit the “rival” may well backfire. Kadivar questions the scholarly competence of religious intellectuals such as Soroush, and raises the authority of his own seminary knowledge and seminary education, once again adopting a stance similar to Motahhari’s against Shariati:

“The tricks of the trade must be learned from an experienced master, a scholarly thesis must be written, and defended under the supervision of an advisor. Those who have studied in another field, such as the natural sciences, medicine, engineering, and then become intimate with the Quran, or have personally studied the works of mystics, or have self-taughtly pursued the books of philosophers and sages, but have never published a scholarly book or article in the international academic sense, or a thesis or book in the traditional seminary sense, and now introduce themselves as a theorist or philosopher or mystic or Quranic researcher or theologian, are their views reliable in their basic outlines? The chain of teacher and student in the religious sciences is extraordinarily important. Anyone who makes a scholarly claim must first prove their scholarly competence. The claimant of philosophy, at which university or which seminary and under which philosopher did they study? The claimant of mysticism, at which university or which recognized mystical circle and under which Sufi did they undertake mystical wayfaring? The claimant of Quranic exegesis, at which university or which seminary and from which master of the art of exegesis and Quranic sciences did they learn? The claimant of jurisprudence, at which seminary and under which jurist did they learn jurisprudence and its principles? The claimant of theology, at which university or which seminary and under which master did they study theology? It is difficult to trust the specialized scholarly opinions of someone whose scholarly competence has not been endorsed by the masters of the art. Self-taught individuals can, of course, be narrators of the scholarly opinions of others. The discussion is about innovative and specialized opinions. Regarding such opinions, ask the proponent: under whom did you study? How has your scholarly standing been established? This is one of the markers that prevents many abuses. The recognized scholars of every field, including Quranic exegesis, philosophy, mysticism, theology, and jurisprudence, have a clear chain of teachers. Regarding the self-taught, either they must be geniuses (which is very, very rare) or you must take the possibility of gross error in their lessons and teachings very seriously” (Kadivar, 2016).

In this regard, the precise and subtle points made by Soroush Dabbagh in his critique of Kadivar, enumerating his numerous and glaring errors that have led to a kind of “moral color-blindness,” are worth reading (Dabbagh, 1401). Incidentally, this same type of religious and seminary exclusivism is exhibited by another “religious neo-thinker” in defense of Kadivar. Abolqasem Fanaei’s religious exclusivism manifests itself in the form of a new concept called the “right to specialized commentary.” Instead of defending the right to commentary on religion in general and as an a priori matter, and deferring the assessment of an individual’s competence to comment as an a posteriori matter to after the commentary is made, he speaks of the “right to specialized commentary”:

“Even a jurist who has only studied jurisprudence and its principles and is only specialized in these two fields has no right, based on his scattered and non-specialized studies in mysticism, philosophy, and theology, to offer specialized commentary on theological, philosophical, and mystical issues—such as the unity of existence, the nature of prophethood and imamate, or whether the resurrection is bodily, spiritual, or both—just as a philosopher or theologian who has only studied philosophy and theology and is only specialized in these two fields has no right to offer specialized commentary on jurisprudential issues; and in this respect, there is no difference between an academic and a non-academic. Every person, in relation to any science or any subject, is either a researcher or a follower. If they are a researcher, they have the right and competence to offer specialized commentary on subjects within their area of expertise; but if they are a follower, they do not have the right to do so, whether they are an intellectual, a jurist, a philosopher, a theologian, a physicist, a physician, or an engineer. In our era, some people, under the pretext that they are not academics, grant themselves the right to theorize about anything, including religious subjects, and to offer specialized commentary in public lectures, subsequently publishing their lectures in the form of articles or books. When they are objected to, they compare themselves to great philosophers and attribute such an incorrect method to them as well” (Fanaei, 8 Mordad 1401).

The peak of Fanaei’s religious and seminary exclusivism emerges when, in a sharp letter to a prominent Quranic scholar of the country (Dr. Jafar Nekounam, a distinguished critic of neo-thinkers such as Kadivar and Fanaei), he deems him to lack the “right to specialized commentary” and asks him to cease his commentary and criticism:

“Your Excellency holds a doctorate in Quranic sciences and, as a specialist in this field, you have the competence to comment, because you are presumably well-versed in the history and literature of the discourse in Quranic sciences, and you have the right, in light of your deep and technical familiarity with the views of other experts in this field, to hold your own specific opinion, share it with others, and critique the views of others based on it. However, like others who are specialized in a specific field, you have scattered and fragmented studies in other fields, meaning you are not specialized in other fields, you are not familiar with the history and literature of the discourse and the diversity of opinions and theories; and therefore, you do not have the right and competence to take a stance and offer specialized and interpretive commentary in other fields, and consequently, you do not have the right and competence to critique the theories of others in those fields” (Fanaei, 3 Tir 1401).

But what is that fundamental matter in the project of reconstructing religion among “religious intellectuals” that has been neglected or misunderstood by the group known as “religious neo-thinkers”?

B) Deconstructing Religion; A Prerequisite for Reconstruction

As I have explained elsewhere, religious intellectuals, unlike “religious neo-thinkers,” do not think of repairing the edifice of religion; rather, for better or worse, they want to reconstruct this edifice from the ground up, and this reconstruction inevitably passes through the stage of deconstructing religion. In other words, in my view, the dispute between Kadivar and his like-minded colleagues and Soroush and other religious intellectuals is a conflict over the “deconstruction” and “packaging of religion.” As I said before, the packaging of religion, in the era of the religion’s prophet and during the period of struggle, sanctions, and the strife of supporters and enemies, is not possible and does not materialize; the era of the movement simply does not allow for packaging. The packaging of religion or a belief system takes place after the era of the movement. Engels says of the Marxist movement and thought:

“Marx and I have been somewhat blamed because some young writers occasionally place too much emphasis on the economic dimension. We were compelled to emphasize the economic principle in opposition to our adversaries who denied this fundamental principle, and we never had the time, situation, or opportunity to address the other factors involved in this interaction and specify their share” (Engels, 1890, 1972, p. 642, quoted in Ritzer, 1372: 221-222).

This is the situation of a social and intellectual movement in the modern age and in a modern society. Imagine what the situation would be like in the age of the Prophet, in a tribal society, with a Prophet who is a man of action and has not attended school or university. Therefore, it seems that the prophets themselves, as leaders of the religious movement, could never have thought of packaging their religion. Even the verses of the Quran were collected and made into a book later, because it was an oral culture and, according to some historical reports, there were only 17 literate people in that entire community. He was a Prophet and a man of action in a non-literate society with a mythical culture.

At any rate, in later centuries and after the institutionalization of religion, the packaging of religion becomes relevant. Now, “religious new-thinkers” have once again thought of a new packaging of religion. Why? Because they are now negatively influenced by the thoughts of Soroush and other religious intellectuals. Soroush traverses a reverse path and, by the necessity of his mind’s natural mobility and dynamism and the natural progression of the project he began several decades ago (I am not concerned here with the correctness or incorrectness, validity or invalidity of this intellectual project), is in the process of opening up the packages and reconciling their content with modern science and philosophy. In fact, Soroush is practically destroying all the packages of religion (unpacking religion). As a result, due to the work he and others like him do, all existing packages of religion are endangered, and the supporters of these packages and the religious agents of these packages feel threatened. But Soroush has gone even further than this. He not only unpacks religion but also discredits the components of these packages. For example, instead of a “religion of mercy,” he speaks of a “religion of power.” Instead of the traditional and mythical conception of revelation and the Divine Word, he speaks of the “Prophet’s dream” and the “prophetic-divine word” of the Prophet, and instead of the “Holy Book,” he says: the Prophet’s “oral textbook” (Soroush, 1397: 73). He strives to present an immanent prophetology and revelationology. If we wish to use his own words to describe his intellectual project, we can say that Soroush has engaged in the deconstruction of the “form” of religion in order to direct the gaze of contemporary Muslims toward the “formless”:

“The truth is that, following the tradition of philosophers and mystics, it must be said that the Prophet’s work is nothing but this: casting forms upon formless truths. … The difficulty of the prophets’ work and the complaint of the mystics has always been that forms have become a veil for the formless, and the sellers of husks and worshippers of forms have delighted in the forms and remained heedless of the formless, and, what is more reprehensible, have struck the form-breakers with the cudgel of excommunication” (ibid: 67).

As we can see, he places himself within this religious tradition and cultural heritage and speaks of religious “form-breaking”; a move that can be called a transcendence of Islamic orthodoxy and a departure toward the stage of pre-orthodox Islam. In response to the criticism of a contemporary jurist (Ayatollah Sobhani), Soroush has called his work “fluidizing the frozen Islamic theology and returning to the pre-orthodox space, and benefiting from modern sciences and research,” and has considered this work “the condition for the dignified survival of the Islamic religion in the modern world” (ibid: 52). This is precisely what I have referred to as the unpacking of religion and the deconstruction of religion. Therefore, he has moved beyond superstructural measures to repair religion, returned to pre-orthodox Islam, and there is contemplating religious “form-breaking.” Rightly or wrongly, he is engaged in deconstructing the initial formalization of the “formless” in Islam. This is why he explicitly writes:

“The Prophet of Islam carried out his prophethood within two inescapable enclosures: one was the enclosure of forms, which imposed limits and boundaries upon his formless revelations and bound the placeless to the planks of place; the other was the enclosure of custom, which regarded his justice and politics as having a local and temporal form and attribute, and clothed them in the tight garment of tribal laws” (ibid.: 68).

Soroush compares the prophetic experiences of Moses and Muhammad (the exalted prophets of two great religions) and holds that Moses’s experience is “entirely formless” (ibid.: 410). The God of Moses remains formless, but the God of the Prophet of Islam acquires a form and, inevitably, takes on the Arab form of the time, creating a relationship akin to that of master and servant:

“As soon as you name something, it becomes limited and defined. In several places in the Quran where the story of Moses appears, God says to Moses: ‘O Moses, indeed I am Allah, Lord of the Worlds.’ This is the experience of the Prophet of Islam. And it is clear that ‘Lord of the Worlds’ is very different from ‘I am that I am,’ which contains no description whatsoever. Here we must say that the concept of lord, master, and so on… seems to have so filled the Prophet’s mind that the image he derived of God is the image of a master ruling over servants (ibād) in a large village” (ibid.: 410-411).

The motif of iconoclasm (ṣūrat-shekanī) of the prophetic experience in Soroush’s work reminds me of the work of a Christian theologian in separating faith and belief, both to preserve the transcendent beyond religious doctrine and to provide a radical critique of religious doctrine. He, too, in his own language, speaks of the formless:

“Faith is a fundamental religious response. It is an orientation toward the transcendent, an unlimited openness of mind and heart to reality [being] as the unlimited, or to the infinite. Faith can be described as a basic trust in reality [being] or a universal love for reality. Faith is not only relatively transcendent but absolutely so, because it is a drive beyond any human order of meaning, beyond all the particular forms through which faith is mediated in different religious traditions. Faith as an orientation has a term—which is the transcendent—but it has no referent, because the transcendent remains unknown. The object of the faith response is a mystery, because we have no adequate knowledge of the transcendent. We cannot consider the transcendent as an object; we can only point to the infinite, to the unlimited, through symbols” (Davis, 1378: 101-102).

It is clear how radical such a project is[7] and how much it can make a religious thinker universally loathed in his own age. It is as if someone has taken up a pickaxe and is striking at the foundations, claiming that in targeting the foundation, he intends to build a new and updated edifice, and wishes to show us once more the beautiful countenance of the “formless” and to illuminate the face of Islam again. He considers the prerequisite for the survival of religion (the reconstruction of religion) in the modern age to be the deconstruction of religion, or in his own terms, religious “iconoclasm” (ṣūrat-shekanī). In truth, the “foundation” and “basis” of religion (if we may be permitted to use these terms metaphorically and non-literally) in Soroush’s view, is the “formless” matter, and all the rest are its veils, and these veils must be removed and transformed.

Here, it is entirely to be expected that the sense of danger grows ever greater for the agents of packaging religion. Soroush, in particular, is in the process of deconstructing the whole of religion. His intellectual project is to purge all destructive elements from early Islam. Consequently, Kadivar and other religious neo-thinkers have resorted to the so-called “neo-thought” packaging of religion and have employed all manner of harsh, normative expressions against the likes of Soroush, such as “revisionism,” in order to draw boundaries once again. Hence, Kadivar’s presentation of a new typology of contemporary Islamic tendencies in Iran does not signify a scholarly undertaking. He does not behave like a researcher; rather, Kadivar’s conduct is that of a believer who is engaged in boundary-setting and othering within the Persian-speaking religious community. If Kadivar were to present a scholarly thesis, he would have had to offer a reasoned critique of the project of the “deconstruction of religion,” demonstrate the problems and problematic nature of the intellectual path and project of Soroush and other religious intellectuals, and make clear that the survival of religion in the modern age does not require such measures. But Kadivar has resorted to all manner of normative expressions to discredit his “rival” in the religious domain and has once again enlisted those ancient tools of religious exclusion. In his work, he has endeavored to make this othering appear scholarly and critical, and for this reason, as well as due to the problematic assumptions of individuals like Alavitabar (1 August 2022 and 26 August 2022) and certain others (such as Dorandish, 2022), they have been unable to discern this superficial scholarly veneer in Kadivar’s discourse and have regarded his work as “critique” and “expert assessment.” This is also why I speak of Kadivar’s “quasi-juristic” conduct and call his behavior the “quasi-excommunication” of religious intellectuals, for he oscillates between the role of a jurist and the role of a religious thinker, and the simultaneous performance of these two roles is also conflictual. Instead of a scholarly and critically-minded encounter, he has undertaken a dogmatically-minded encounter and has turned to a dogmatic defense, yet, most astonishingly, has labeled such an undertaking as critique (Kadivar, 2022). Fabricating an artificial intellectual lineage for religious intellectuals from among so-called Western “revisionist” scholars of Islam and establishing a connection between them and religious intellectuals through the term “revisionism” is part of this pretense of scholarship in the work of this “religious neo-thinker.”

c) Three Tendencies and Three Modes of Encountering Islamic History and Heritage: Glorifying, Embellishing, Exposing

After more than half a century of activity by the forces of these three religious tendencies, their methods and procedures in confronting the religious heritage and its problems in the new era have become increasingly apparent, and these methods and procedures can be extracted from their works. The conservatives wish to follow and replicate the methods of the Prophet and his companions in early Islam exactly in the present time and the modern age, and not only do they feel no shame, discomfort, or need for apology regarding the incompatibility of those methods and those foundations with modern thoughts and values, but they also make those very things the basis of their work in the modern age and glorify and take pride in them. For example, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, regarding fighting for the propagation of Islam and offensive jihad, says:

“All of you know that for a long time, the enemies of Islam have portrayed Islam as a religion of violence, a religion that advanced by force and the sword. Because jihad exists in Islam. The verses on jihad in the Quran are numerous. … Well, some have also tried, from a defensive position, to argue that no, there is no violence in Islam at all, it is all mercy and love, that these things belonged to specific circumstances and a specific time. And otherwise, in this era, such talk is irrelevant, and similar meanings. … Some have questioned the very principle of jihad because it is violent. … If some people obstruct the propagation of the call of the prophets, especially the Prophet of Islam, one must fight against them so that they are removed as thorns from the path. Islam’s offensive jihad is for removing obstacles to guidance. When the Prophet of Islam is sent forth, they do not tell him there that he has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran or Rome; he says, ‘I am sent by God to guide the people of the earth.’ If the King of Persia or the Caesar of Rome opposes, it is my duty to fight him. … This is an indisputable principle of Islam; Shi’a and Sunni, all Islamic sects agree on this, there is no disagreement in it. So how can we say that Islam has absolutely no war, no jihad?” (Mesbah Yazdi, 1378, quoted in Zakariaei, 1379: 31-39).

Religious restorationists, however, try in every way to mend this indisputable Islamic principle and deny the existence of offensive jihad in Islam. Thus, their approach and method is to beautify religion. I quote an example of this kind of disregard for the documented evidence of Islamic history from the words of Mohsen Kadivar. He denies the existence of offensive jihad in Islam and presents the conduct of Muslim caliphs in the post-Prophetic era as a deviation from Islamic principles:

“In the realm of theory, jihad is solely ‘defensive jihad.’ The jihads of the Quran and the era of the Prophet (PBUH) were defensive, but what has been carried out as jihad after the Prophet, especially from the year 40 AH onwards, is difficult to attribute solely to defensive jihad” (Kadivar, 2 Dey 1391).

“Regarding verses or narrations that have a violent appearance, the text must be read in its context. Such verses are about how to deal with the polytheists and the Jews allied with them at the time of the Prophet and cannot and should not be generalized. These verses are not universal and do not apply to the present time. Muslims who generalize the seasonal verses of early Islam are mistaken. Orientalists who use such incorrect understandings as a pretext have political motives. Such violent seasonal verses are far more numerous in the Torah and the Bible than in the Quran. The verses that permanently determine the duty of Muslims towards non-Muslims are verses 8 and 9 of Surah Al-Mumtahanah. We are not permitted to use violence and war against anyone except for defense and retaliation, while observing ethics and prioritizing forgiveness” (Kadivar, 26 Bahman 1392).

When we examine the history of Islam and the verses and narrations of the Quran, we find a kind of convergence and consensus in all of them on the affirmation and existence of offensive jihad in Islam [8]. Therefore, the method of religious restorationists in confronting a part of the Islamic heritage that is incompatible with modern thoughts and values is based on a kind of defensiveness, apology, and techniques of beautifying and mending Islam.

But the approach and method of the new reconstructionists in confronting the Islamic heritage is the method of exposure. Soroush, through the prophetization of Islam (which I will explain later), invalidates Islamic orthodoxy by way of fundamental exposure. Instead of beautifying Islam, he tries to expose what things in Islamic history and in Islamic teachings are incompatible with the conditions of living in the new world and must be set aside as contextual matters:

“The Prophet [of Islam] was a man of war, and this disposition for war, power, and dominion was with him from the beginning, and he breathed this spirit well into his religion. That is, he was aware that he was creating a power, and he did not sit aside and say, whatever calamity you bring upon this power and religion, I will remain silent. He was very agile, ready, and on the scene to confront those who would uproot this seed he had planted and watered, and he dealt with them very severely. Where do we see this severity? First, he said that apostates must be killed. This is a very important point. Of course, in the Torah we also have harsh punishments where it is written to burn them, and in Islam we do not have burning. It was not and is not a customary practice. But this narration that both Shia and Sunni have transmitted from the Prophet—that whoever changes his religion, kill him without question—is a widely transmitted (mutawatir) narration in both Shia and Sunni traditions, and it was acted upon. That is, it was not an abandoned matter that merely appeared as a narration somewhere. It is acted upon even to this day, and it tells the same story: that power must be protected. And it is not the case that individuals can come and say whatever they please. Now, we have narrations about those who satirized the Prophet and composed poetry against him; he sent for them and had them killed. All of this was accepted by Muslims. I am speaking phenomenologically. That is, I have nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of these matters. I mean, Islamic culture grew accustomed to this thinking that the opponent must be killed. That one who insults the Prophet must be killed, and it did not consider this a reprehensible thing. It is true that in the present day, some try to say that such-and-such narration is false, or that the Prophet did not send [anyone] to kill that poetess or another. I do not know; perhaps it is false. I have no dispute over these matters now. My point is that they did not deem this reprehensible and accepted that the Prophet could do this. And they accepted that he did do this, and they considered it part of the requirements of religiosity and the Prophet’s religion, and they did not consider it a violation of his infallibility or his being a mercy to the worlds. All of this relates to the story of the Prophet’s authoritarianism and that he wanted to consolidate his dominion over the Arabian Peninsula and beyond” (Soroush, 1399).

As you observe in this specific example, Mesbah Yazdi and Kadivar, despite holding two opposing positions, both see the hand of Westerners at work to destroy Islam and express a conspiracy-minded view regarding jihad! On the other hand, Mesbah Yazdi and Soroush more or less say the same thing about the status and place of jihad in Islam, but the former defends and takes pride in it, while the latter merely reports it as a reality and currently considers it one of the destructive elements of Islamic orthodoxy, seeking to permanently discredit such elements and purge Islam of this so-called “destructive” content. The prophetization of Islam allows Soroush to question the eternality of such components of early Islam and to regard them as temporal, contextual matters linked to the personality and situation of the Prophet, and generally related to the formalization of the formless in the prophetic experience. In his view, the lordly God (Soroush, 1397: 411) in whose name and for whose sake so much power has been exercised throughout Islamic history is also a product of prophetic Islam: “The Prophet’s God is both his discovery and a carving, a creation of his mind and his dream, and likewise the entirety of the Prophet’s religion” (ibid: 334). This is just one example of how the forces of these three Islamic tendencies confront the Islamic heritage and the history of Islam, and to avoid further prolixity, I refrain from mentioning other examples.

Kadivar correctly perceives the proximity of some of the views of figures like Soroush and religious conservatives in confronting the Islamic heritage, but he is incapable of explaining and understanding it, and he mentions the difference between the views of “religious neo-thinkers” and the three aforementioned groups as follows:

“Some other statements by revisionist Muslims bear a strange resemblance to those of extremist or fundamentalist Muslims, specifically those views that have portrayed the Prophet as authoritarian and God and the Quran as supporters and defenders of violence, imposition, and coercion. Neo-thinker Muslims draw a clear boundary with both types of views, whether the aforementioned views of Islam-haters and Orientalists on the one hand, or fundamentalist views” (Kadivar, 1400).

But he fails to grasp that this difference is rooted in the whitewashing of Islamic history and heritage, and that other groups do not confront this heritage in the same way. Indeed, the whitewashing of Islamic heritage and history can be seen in the work of figures such as Kadivar, Fanaei, Bazargan, Naraghi, and many other Iranian religious thinkers, and it is unfortunately becoming an established and popular approach in contemporary religious thought.

d) Inability to Explain the Intellectual Project and the Turn to Doctrinal Dossier-Building

But the inability to explain Soroush's deconstructive intellectual project has led many to accuse him of inventing a religion and, wittingly or unwittingly, to participate in doctrinal dossier-building against our country's prominent thinker and to disrupt the work of free-thinking religious inquiry (see Naraghi, 1395; Ganji, 1395; Kadivar, 1400). Arash Naraghi has speculated on this matter, claiming:

"For some time now, Soroush has been murmuring in his lectures and writings about the necessity of establishing a new religious sect or creed. And it seems to me that he now wishes to take newer, practical steps to declare the existence of this new sect or creed. For example, I think his claim regarding reading the Quran as a dream journal could perhaps be seen as an effort in this direction" (Naraghi, 1395).

Akbar Ganji, in a "justificatory" discourse (Mujahedi, 1395) on Soroush's intellectual project, also called him the "prophet of a new religion," and in his doctrinal dossier-building, equated his deconstructive work with prophetic work, calling it the "invention of a new religion":

"Abdolkarim Soroush seeks to invent a new religion compatible with modernity and the new world. He considers himself the prophet of this new religion and fully believes in the success of the religion he is building based on his dreams. Until the mid-2000s, Soroush was pursuing sect-building, but he gradually leaned toward inventing a new religion. Of course, a precise date cannot be determined for his transition from the sect-building phase to the phase of inventing and establishing a new religion. At certain junctures, while cultivating the first project, he also takes theoretical steps to lay the groundwork for the second project" (Ganji, 1395).

Unfortunately, Mohsen Kadivar has also gone down the same path, interpreting the critique and dissolution of Islamic orthodoxy in Soroush's works as "religion-making" on his part:

"With all this, I raise the title of revisionism with the minimal claim of revising the foundations and fundamentals of Islam, the argument for which is very simple:

First premise: Belief in the Quran as the Word of God is among the foundations of Islam.

Second premise: Negating this belief and changing it to human speech is a revision of the foundations of Islam.

Third premise: Revising the foundations of Islam is presenting a religion different from Islam" (Kadivar, 1400).

Indeed, they have tainted the intellectual work of people of knowledge with the suspicion of doctrinal dossier-building. Now is the time to explain that whatever the deconstructionist interpretation of Islam may be (good or bad), it is fundamentally different from bringing a new religion, and perhaps if Kadivar were familiar with the works of deconstructionist thinkers and philosophers of religion, he would have had some hesitation in this type of doctrinal dossier-building and would not have followed the path of Naraghi and Ganji.

Explaining Abdolkarim Soroush's Intellectual Project: The Dissolution of Orthodoxy and the Prophetization of Islam

When we examine Soroush's works and writings piece by piece, we fail to grasp their unity, but when we view his intellectual approach and trajectory over the past few decades from the perspective of deconstruction and "form-breaking," we perceive a kind of unity, continuity, and persistence. It seems the intellectual path Soroush has been traversing in recent decades leads to the gradual dissolution of Islamic orthodoxy and takes steps toward the prophetization of Islamic theology. He explicitly states that he "does not fear the thick tradition of orthodoxy" (Soroush, 1397: 46) and repeatedly introduces and emphasizes his intellectual path: "Bringing fluidity to the stagnant Islamic theology and returning to the pre-orthodoxy era" (ibid: 52 and 81). Soroush is highlighting the role of the Prophet in Islam. He calls the existing theology "weak," "ailing," and "suffering from jurisprudential blockage" (ibid: 82). Hence, his work can be called the prophetization of Islamic theology and the prophetization of Islam. When we look at his explanations, this point is readily understandable:

"We should consider the powerful and divinely-supported soul of the Prophet as the agent of wills, the possessor of intentions, the creator of verses, and the maker of rulings; a soul that, by virtue of its immense power, is God's vicegerent on earth, whose hand is God's hand and whose speech is God's speech. And the Quran is his miracle" (ibid: 76).

"By changing the speaker and placing the Prophet in God's stead, and considering him the author and possessor of the Quran, many of those debates become groundless and lose their relevance" (ibid: 312).

"The Islamic Ummah is Muhammad, who has expanded and grown in history, and this Ummah is his body, and the spirit of Muhammad flows within this Ummah" (ibid: 315).

"I personally have given a maximal role to him [the Prophet] and defend it, and I think with this maximal role, many of our problems will be solved" (ibid: 328).

"Islam means Muhammadiyyah" (ibid: 315).

The prophetization of Islam and Islamic theology fundamentally desacralizes Islam, Islamic theology, and the sacred text (ibid: 86 and 311), permanently sets aside the "Sultan-like God" who has played a central role in Islamic theology, and opens the way for the religious thinker to reconstruct religion. He explicitly states that he wants to "cast a new design in the structure of theology and religious studies" (ibid: 78). In my view, his intellectual path bears a certain affinity with the path of postmodern philosophers of religion; although Soroush may not have been practically influenced by their thought at all, and I am not inclined to artificially equate his views with the practices of postmodern philosophers of religion or consider his project entirely consistent with the project of deconstructing religion, the more I examine, the more I conclude that Soroush is deconstructing Islam (or shall we say, deconstructing the entire Islamic heritage or deconstructing Islamic orthodoxy). When Soroush criticizes the "thick and heavy" Islamic metaphysics (ibid: 328) and speaks of "lightening" it, of a "return to the pre-orthodoxy era," and of setting aside "a Sultan-like God separate from creation" (ibid: 347), I find deconstructive themes in his work:

"What has always been of interest to me was presenting a minimal metaphysics, because we live in a post-Kantian era where metaphysics in its former sense has been greatly discredited, and it is very difficult to defend the metaphysical positions of the ancients. … The minimal metaphysics I had in mind was that God's relationship with the world is an indimājī (fusion) relationship, a relationship where the effect is dissolved in the cause. The contingent is truly filled with the Necessary. All contingents are filled with God, but the Prophet is more filled, and this is the very concept of the perfection of proximity. … The conception of a God separate from nature does not fit in my mind" (ibid: 344).

Here, I am involuntarily reminded of the words of Iqbal Lahori, who speaks of the great duty of the modern Muslim in rethinking the entire system of Islam and of "dead metaphysics," and again an affinity comes to my mind:

«مفاهیم نظام‌های الاهیاتی، پیچیده شده در واژه‌گان یک متافیزیک عملاً مرده، هیچ کمکی به کسانی که از قضا واجد پس‌زمینه‌ی فکری‌ی متفاوتی هستند، نخواهند کرد. بدین ترتیب، وظیفه‌ای که پیش روی مسلمان مدرن قرار دارد، بسیار بزرگ است. او می‌بایست در کل نظام اسلام بازاندیشی کند بدون این‌که به‌طور کامل از گذشته ببرد» (Iqbal, 1930, 2009: 107).

به‌نظر شما آیا این تعابیر مشابه در سخنان اقبال لاهوری و سروش (متافیزیک مرده، الاهیات افسرده، متافیزیک ستبر و سنگین، بازگشت به دوران ماقبل ارتدوکسی) تصادفی است؟ من این‌طور فکر نمی‌کنم و ارجاع هر دو (سروش،‌ ۱۳۹۷: ۳۹۸) به سخنان و کار شاه ولی‌الله دهلوی (Ibid: 107) و بهره‌گیری‌ سروش از ایده‌های اقبال لاهوری (همان: ۳۹۸-۳۹۷) را نشان‌دهنده‌ی قرابت فکری‌ جدّی‌ این دو می‌دانم. من در بحث از نسبت خدا و جهان نیز در کار این دو متفکّر مسلمان مشابهت‌های فکری می‌بینم که جای بحث آن این‌جا نیست. به همین ترتیب، وقتی کار جان دی. کاپیوتو[9] فیلسوف دین و چهره‌ی برجسته‌ی الاهیات پسامدرن را در «واسازی مسیحیت» (Jabeen and Qurrat-ul-ain, 2021) دنبال می‌کنم، باز هم کار سروش را از جنس واسازی دین (و در این‌جا اسلام) می‌یابم:

«پرسش از ذات دین و کلام خدا (God-talk) توسط مفسران واسازی‌گرا به شیوه‌ای پسامتافیزیکی یا ضدمتافیزیکی پاسخ داده می‌شود. واسازی‌ مسیحیت در تفکر غربی به موازات واسازی‌ متافیزیک سربرمی‌آورد. مسأله‌ی اصلی‌ مفسران واسازی‌گرا با متافیزیک این است که متافیزیک به زنده‌گی‌ انسانی در این جهان وفادار نیست، بدان درجه که نظامی انتزاعی است که وحدتِ ایستایی را برتر می‌نشاند تا بنیادی ثابت و امن برای زنده‌گی تدارک ببیند. … کاپیوتو واسازی‌ دریدا را دنبال می‌کند که به روز کردن برداشت‌های «الاهیاتی‌ ستبر» (strong) از خدا را هدف گرفته است؛ همان برداشت‌هایی که توسط آدمیان بسیار به‌کار گرفته شده است تا اراده‌ی معطوف به قدرت‌شان را مشروعیت ببخشند. مطابق نظر کاپیوتو این الاهیات‌های ستبر اغلب در دل‌شان وجودشناختی‌‌اند و مسؤولیت خشونت انجام شده برای خدا (به‌عنوان یک مفهوم) و انجام گرفته به نام خدا (به‌عنوان یک فاکت، آن‌چنان‌که اغلب در دین دیده شده) را بر عهده دارند» (Ibid: 8-9).

چه‌طور می‌توان این قرابت‌ها را نادیده گرفت؟ عبور از این «متافیزیک عملاً مرده» در میراث اسلامی و بازگشت به پیشاارتدوکسی، نیازمند واسازی‌ی ارتدوکسی‌ی اسلامی و مؤلّفه‌های سازنده‌ی آن است. لاجرم، در چنین پروژه‌ی واسازانه‌ای، معمولاً پرسیده می‌شود: سرانجام از دین چه می‌ماند؟ پاسخ سروش شاید این باشد: یک دینِ انسانی و معنوی با «متافیزیک معقول و مینیمال» (همان: ۳۴۵) و سازگار با اندیشه‌ی نوین و ارزش‌های نوین که دیگر از آن، مشی و مرام القاعده‌ای و طالبانیسم و داعشی‌گری و امثالهم نمی‌زاید. سروش خود بر «جواهر آموزه‌های قرآن» و بر میراث دینی و معنوی‌ پیامبر و میراث عظیم معنوی‌‌ عُرفای مسلمان تمرکز می‌کند (همان: ۷۸) و «مطمئن است «که آبروی شریعت بدین قدر نرود»» (همان: ۴۶). باری، نتیجه هر چه باشد، راه مطلوب مواجهه با اندیشه‌های او پرونده‌سازی‌ عقیدتی، از آن دست که کسانی چون کدیور و فنائی و نراقی و گنجی و دیگر به‌اصطلاح «نواندیشان دینی» کرده‌اند، نیست بل‌که گفت‌وگوی اندیشه‌ورانه و متفکّرانه است.

نتیجه‌گیری

In my view, the intellectual project of figures like Abdolkarim Soroush, in confronting the religious heritage, is highly radical and fundamental. As a result of the persistent pursuit of such a project, his rivals in the religious sphere feel seriously threatened by the anti-orthodox intellectual trajectory of Soroush and other religious intellectuals, and it is due to this sense of threat that Kadivar, as a religious functionary, has exhibited a custodial behavior and begun repackaging religion, speaking of ten components in this packaging. If you examine his packaging operation closely, you will find that this packaging is entirely new, bearing the color and scent of our era and its intellectual and social conflicts, and reflecting them. Therefore, in my opinion, the Kadivar–Soroush dispute is a dispute over the packaging of religion on the one hand and the deconstruction of religion on the other. In my view, the realization of this dispute in the course of the evolution of religious thought in contemporary Iran is a step forward, and instead of negating, condemning, belittling, and calling it “childish” (Jabbari, Instagram note, 1401) or describing it as undesirable (Mansournejad, 1401), it should be formulated and explicated in a theoretical and scholarly manner. My effort in this article has been directed toward such a task, and I consider the binary of packaging religion / deconstructing religion to be explanatory of such a dispute[10]. My inclination was to stand outside this dispute and observe it, but the fabrication of ideological dossiers (from which many thinkers in contemporary Iran have not been spared, and this is a shared affliction), willy-nilly, draws one in. In any case, judgment rests with the experts.

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References and Sources

Ibn Kathir, Ismail ibn Umar (n.d.) Tafsir al-Quran al-Azim, vol. 1.

Jabbari, Akbar (1401) Instagram note beginning with “I view the debates and quarrels of religious intellectuals as children's squabbles …”. Mordad 1401

Dabbagh, Soroush (1400) “Religious Color Blindness or Moral Color Blindness?”. Din Online website, 21 Esfand 1400.

Dourandish, Houman (1401) “Kadivar is not Soroush's bodyguard”. Asr-e Iran analytical-news website, 13 Mordad 1401.

Davis, Charles (1387) Religion and the Making of Society: Essays in Social Theology. Translated by Hassan Mohaddesi and Hossein Bab-al-Havaeji. Tehran: Yadevaran Publishing, first edition.

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Soroush, Abdolkarim (1397) The Word of Muhammad, The Dream of Muhammad. N.p.: Seqrat Publications, first edition.

Soroush, Abdolkarim (1399) “Religion is a Power: A Report on a Lecture”. Zeitoon website, 10 Dey 1399.

Tayefi, Mohammad Hossein (1395) “An Analysis of Compassionate Islam from the Perspective of Imam Khomeini (RA) / Part One”. Khatt-e Emam website.

Alavitabar, Alireza (1401) “New Factions in Religious New-Thinking: A Conversation with Alireza Alavitabar”. Ham-Mihan newspaper 10 Mordad 1401 / Farzad Nemati (Culture Group reporter).

Alavitabar, Alireza (1401) “No Takfir Has Occurred: The Hard Core of Islamic Studies” in conversation with Alireza Alavitabar. Zeitoon website, 4 Shahrivar 1401.

Alipour Vahid, Hassan (1394) Compassionate Islam: An Analysis of Foundations and Components. Qom: Maaref Publishing Office.

Alipour Vahid, Hassan (2017) Rahmani Reading: Rahmani Islam from the Perspective of Mohsen Kadivar. Qom: Maaref Publishing House.

Alipour Vahid, Hassan (2017) The Revolutionary Seminary and the Challenge of Rahmani Islam. The Struggle of Rahmani Islam with Revolutionary Islam in the Seminaries. Qom, Armaghan-e Kowsar.

Kadivar, Mohsen (2010) “Rahmani Islam”. Official Website of Mohsen Kadivar, 24 July 2010.

Kadivar, Mohsen (2012) “Defensive and Offensive Jihad, War in the Sacred Months and the Masjid al-Haram”. Official Website of Mohsen Kadivar, 22 December 2012.

Kadivar, Mohsen (2014) “Islam is Not a Religion of Violence”. Official Website of Mohsen Kadivar, 15 February 2014.

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Kadivar, Mohsen (2021) “The Hard Core of Islam: A Faithful Life. Third Session”. Official Website of Mohsen Kadivar, 16 July 2021.

Kadivar, Mohsen (2022) “New Islamic Spectrums in Contemporary Iran”. Official Website of Mohsen Kadivar, 1 March 2022.

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Jabeen, Asma and Qurrat-ul-ain, Ayesha (2021) “Deconstruction of Christianity in the Postmodern Age: What Remains after That?” Journal of Islamic & Religious Studies. Vol. 6, Issue. 2, July – Dec 2021.

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[1] Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, and researcher in the sociology of religion

[2] Packaging religion

[3] Packaged religion

[4] Lived religion

[5] For this interesting example from Islamic history, I am indebted to the insights of dear scholarly friends in the Telegram group “Quranic and Hadith Conversations,” especially the valuable points made by Dr. Ruhollah Najafi, Associate Professor of Quranic and Hadith Sciences at Kharazmi University.

[6] “Islam is built upon five [pillars]: faith in God and His Messenger, the five daily prayers, fasting in Ramadan, the payment of zakat, and the pilgrimage to the House.”

[7] Deconstructionist philosophers and interpreters of religion use the term radical hermeneutics in this context.

[8] In this particular case, I have specifically drawn intellectual benefit from the works and writings of the esteemed Quranic scholar Dr. Jafar Nekounam, and it is my duty to express my gratitude and offer him my sincere thanks.

[9] John D. Caputo

[10] This is the fourteenth and final duality (until further notice) in my discussion for introducing the sociology of religion, which I have arrived at through consideration of this dispute.

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